FIVE
by SarahBlackwood
Summary: After episode 8 Alex is confused about Gene, in shock and trying to solve a kidnapping case.
1. One

FIVE

None of these characters or situations belong to me. And stuff.

One:

There is no sound after the bomb, as if her eardrums have been damaged beyond repair by the blast. They haven't though, she has been examined. She lacks nothing. A little sleep perhaps, would do her a world of good. She hasn't slept in months, not properly, not without the aid of alcohol. She didn't drink in 2008, in fact she often said she couldn't drink, just one glass made her tired, she didn't like the feeling that she wasn't in control. She had Molly to think of. Here in 1981 she didn't like the feeling of control. She wanted to float aimlessly. Drift.

One day after the bomb she longs for that control again. Too late, she admits she was mistaken. There is nothing safe or comforting about drifting. She can't function at all. She forgets things, how to walk, how to dress herself, how to chew and swallow. She can no longer remember Molly's favourite colour, her favourite song, what she likes for breakfast. Only last night she lay awake trying to remember if Wednesday came after Thursday or not, what apples tasted like. Just now she forgot to breathe, though that may have had more to do with the sight of Gene Hunt sweeping into the office, his face like a thundercloud.

Lately she didn't know herself around Hunt. Everything he said had the volume turned down to her. She could see his lips moving but no sound issued from them. It was as though she wouldn't or couldn't deal with everything Gene stood for, her mind had created a cushioning bubble around him, like a blister. He slammed a hand full of photographs and a manila envelope onto her desk. She never had been good at reading lips so she just stared at his mouth, marvelling at the shape of the words, marvelling at the fact that they meant nothing at all to her. No wait, this one word she knew.

"Bolls."

He was saying her name. Her heart skipped a beat. But that wasn't her name was it? She had another. A real one not just his silly pet name. Alex. She was Alex. But she wasn't. Even in her head she thought of herself as Bolly. She was losing herself. It occurred to her she might be something he constructed and not the other way around.  
To escape his scrutinising glare she flicked her eyes down to the photographs on her desk. A little girl in a school uniform. She knew that uniform because she had worn one just like it. The girl looked vaguely familiar. Thin, horsy sort of face, a gap between her teeth, dark blond hair pushed away from her eyes with a pink ribbon, tiny earrings in the lobes of her ears, Kirsty something. She'd known her at school. No amount of pleading could make Caroline Price take her to get her ears pierced. She remembered the seething jealousy and the admiration. Whatever happened to her? Whatever happened to Kirsty Andrews? She couldn't remember that part. Had she moved? Switched schools? Why couldn't she remember?

"Missing, since Saturday afternoon, school thought she'd gone home, parents thought she'd stayed at school, no ransom note yet." Shaz said.

Shaz? Back already? She feels Shaz move closer to her from the left side. She can feel her soft fingers on her arm. Shaz' voice is clear as a bell in her ear. The only voice that sounds clear in this underwater world. She points out the witnesses statements in the manila folder.

"Is this even our jurisdiction?" Alex wonders aloud.  
Though why she bothers, she doesn't know. It isn't as if there is a system in this world of hers. These days she wouldn't be surprised if King Kong came striding through the doors of CID one morning and demanded an interview with DCI Hunt.

"They asked for us, they asked for you by name ma'am." Shaz explains.

There is a burning feeling in Alex's throat. She should know this. She should remember. A white hand peering out from beneath the sheet, Evan's voice telling her, "Kirsty's just gone to visit her grandparents, darling. I'm sure she'll be back in no time." That had sounded funny even to sad little Alex Price still reeling from her parent's death. Something was being wheeled away. Alex saw a small hand it was reaching for her. They were wheeling something away, out into the light, into a vehicle.

Was that what had become of her friend? The world is fuzzy again, everyone's voice knotted together in a chorus. The swirling darkness closes in on her, blocking out the sheet, the hand and the photograph of Kirsty Andrews. Her head lands on her desk with a thud. There's a blessed pause before the world comes rushing back and Alex is half expecting to be lying on the damp ground in an alley, Layton towering over her with a gun. That vision is shattered by the feeling of someone pressing a glass of cold water into her hand and the sound of someone speaking.

"Christ on a bike! I can't handle this now. Someone take her home." His voice crackles like an old LP. It sounds like he's so far away, she isn't at all sure he actually spoke. Perhaps her mind just produced a response typical of Gene. He seems somehow bigger from where she is sitting, over-dimensional, like a picture of an adult from a child's point of view. He starts to turn away, to walk back towards his office.

"No." She whispers.

At least she thinks she does. Her hand shoots out of its own accord and fastens itself onto his sleeve. He looks down at it with an expression she can't analyse, all her years at university a waste. She thinks it may be disgust. The sudden acute hotness behind her eyes frightens her and so she doesn't cry after all.

"No Guv, let me stay. I can help, see?" She pauses to brush her hair into place with one hand and smile. "All better."

She doesn't hear what he answers to that. Probably for the best as it produces a round of laughter from the others. To her, the laughter is deep and slow, distorted like the sound of wild beasts growling in a child's nightmare. Her head might explode with the sound of it.

But she doesn't let it show on her face. She can't go home now. She can't sit up there alone. She has to go with them, back to school. To the last place Kirsty was seen. This might be the only way to get back to Molly she realises. Yes, that's it. If she can save this little girl all will be well again.

She stands up abruptly and dons her jacket and then strides purposefully towards the door, photos and folder in hand. It feels strange to be wearing heels, unnatural, she wavers slightly as she passes Chris, Ray and Gene. A strong hand closes on her upper arm, it will leave a bruise but she knows it's the only thing holding her up, again. Gene mutters something; from his body language she can tell it's a warning. He releases her arm slowly, the pressure abating until it seems to her like he is caressing it.

She looks around desperately to see if anyone else noticed but they are all laughing, chewing gum and shuffling out of the door.


	2. One and a Half

One and a half:

In the Quattro with her head against the window, Alex tries to organise her thoughts. She said she was fine, she wanted to solve this case; now all that was left to do was solve it. How easy that sounded in her head back at CID. Here, out in the open she feels naked, like a knight without armour. Instead of claiming shot-gun as she usually does, Alex leaves the seat beside Gene to Ray, who gets in eagerly without question. She takes the seat behind the driver, where the dizziness overwhelms her almost at once. The last time she was car-sick had been when she was pregnant with Molly. She leans her forehead against the seat in front of her, praying for the nausea to end. She can feel his motions as he switches gears and shifts his weight this way and that. Does he have to drive with his whole body? Why can he never just be still? He is always moving or drinking, smoking or doodling and even when he is just sitting there at Luigi's he is waving his arms and flicking or twitching his fingers, playing with his lighter or plucking at the tablecloth. How can someone she made up in her head be so alive when she feels so lifeless?

Ash Street looks different, considering she had been here only yesterday. It looks subdued. The Technicolor of the eighties, her initial impression that she had landed over the rainbow, is gone, Ash Street is grey in grey.

In school, everything is smaller and shabbier and Alex feels clumsy and huge next to the tittering schoolgirls. She cranes her neck in hope of seeing her younger self but then remembers that she would be at Evan's house. Eating ice cream and watching television, the reality of her altered life not yet sunk in.

As the afternoon wears on she realises time is different too, not just sound and colour, everything is slow and dolorous. They question more students and teachers, a cook, the gardener and a handful of others whose faces all blend into one.  
Gene leaves to speak to the Headmaster about the press release and a possible public appeal. Only a day ago she would have gone with him. Apparently things have changed.  
Instead he lets her question Mrs. Andrews, probably because they already have a statement from her taken by the first police man on the scene.

She can't remember ever meeting Kirsty's mother. She doesn't expect this tall, attractive woman whose long face, reminiscent of her daughter's, was dignified rather than horsy. Her clothes are expensive, a shade too fashionable to be formal. She smells familiar. A spasm in her chest jogs her memory. Mrs Andrews is wearing Caroline's perfume, it's Michelle by Balenciaga. Tim gave it to her for her birthday. Alex remembers spraying some on in order to test it and smelling like her Mum all day long.

Mrs. Andrews seems composed. Too composed? There may be shadows hiding beneath that perfect foundation but Alex can't detect them with her naked eye.

"I don't know why you needed to talk to me again. I gave a statement this morning. I only came back to speak with the Headmaster."

She sounds like she practiced these words. Alex waits for the tremor in her voice, the strain, there is none. Is this a woman whose child has been missing for almost three days? Is this how she would act were Molly missing?  
Alex casts a look about the room Kirsty shares with her roommate. Her side is meticulously tidy, unnaturally so. There is almost a visible line between her side of the room and that of the other girl. Mrs. Andrews assures her all is as it should be, Kirsty is a very conscientious little girl. Alex can't remember that about her friend.  
She thinks of Molly's room at home in 2008. CD's without covers and clothes on the floor, her dresser a jumble of glittery necklaces and bracelets, lip glosses, nail polish, magazines and candy wrappers. No amount of nagging could ever make her clean it regularly.

The girl Kirsty shares with, Angela, seems tidy enough. Her side is neat but a jumper is slung over the back of a chair, her hairbrush has a few stray strands of dark hair between the prongs, her bed is perfunctorily made. Her mirror is decorated with stickers. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Mrs. Andrews stands at Kirsty's desk, her hands clasped. There isn't a stray scrap of paper on it, not a speck of dust, no keepsakes. No wait. By the lamp she spies a flash of bright pink, synthetic, soft. One of those trolls. Are they following her?

"That's not Kirsty's." Mrs. Andrews says. "We don't let her have toys like that. Only educational ones."

At Kirsty's window there is a vase of red roses, petals just starting to fall.

"And those flowers, she isn't allowed, she's allergic."

"Only educational toys, no flowers but you let her pierce her ears at the age of six." Alex shakes her head in disbelief.

"How did you…?" Mrs. Andrews starts. She isn't so attractive with her mouth gaping open like a codfish. "That was her father, he dotes on her so." She swallows those last words.

If she were the old Alex, the Alex she was yesterday, she would be making connections, she'd be noticing discrepancies. Not today. She thinks back a similar scene from her childhood. One that involved Caroline refusing to buy her earrings, Tim had been willing but Caroline had won of course.  
Tim. Was that her father's name?  
Her fingertips feel numb.

"Guv says we're finished here." Chris words swim out towards her. She can't shake the numbness spreading through her, freezing her voice in her throat. She nods instead.  
Mrs. Andrews is giving her a strange concerned look. Yeah, Alex thinks, I get that a lot.  
On her way out of the room she notices a grey heap at the foot of the bed. A school jumper. Mrs. Andrews makes a clicking with her tongue. "That's so unlike her." She says reaching to pick it up.  
"Better take that Chris." She warns.

Another drive in the Quattro, another hour or so at CID recording her findings. Gene passes her on the way out, shrugging on his coat. She stares at him from under her eyelashes and he doesn't even glance her way.

By the time she makes it to Luigi's almost everyone has left. Ray, walking out the front door, claps her on the shoulder. It is a surprising, uncharacteristic action that confuses her even more.

There is a feeling of relief so delicious it hurts when she sees him sitting in his usual seat. The numbness is melting away.  
She half expects him to leave when he sees her but he pauses in mid-draft looking at her as if weighing his options and then motions her to sit.  
Only last night things were normal. Only last night he was drinking with her, laughing as if nothing had happened. As if there had been no betrayal, no visit from Lord Scarman, no bomb.  
Alex can't grasp what has changed. This is a world she can't fathom. A world within a world within a world. Like nesting boxes.

She sits across from him without moving, without speaking. Alex struggles with her thoughts, trying to think of something to say, trying to piece together sentences out of blank puzzle pieces. One day after the bomb they are silent at last. No more banter, no more crude jokes. She doesn't touch the wine in front of her, she drinks in the sight of Gene, a man, she realises she doesn't know at all. Tonight feels like the real goodbye. No silly talk of watching videos and missing him, no patronising smiles. Now she knows how foolish she sounded that night. She thought she could shrug Gene off like an unfashionable frock. But in light of the events after the bomb she realises he was always there, under her skin.


	3. Two

Hey! Thank you for all the reviews! They really help me keep this going. And thanks to the wonderful kimi-87 for the beta-ing.

Two:

In the end it is the ticking sound that forces Alex out of bed where she has lain sleepless for the past five hours. The ticking from the bomb that isn't there. The bomb she had never even heard. It's the ticking and the thought that Kirsty might be dead already. Four days on with no note and no suspects. It occurs to her there might be more to this case then she is aware of at this point. She has never felt so disconnected. For all she knows the others have already solved it. No, they couldn't. This is her case, her ticket out of here.

One of the perks of insomnia is all the extra time she has to get ready for work in the morning.  
On bad days in 2008 she was lucky if she had enough time in the morning to roll out of bed, stopping only to knock on Molly's door on the way to the toilet. A quick shower and a few half-hearted strokes through her sleep-mussed hair with a comb had to suffice. Make up? Don't be silly. Molly had asked her why she didn't have more fun colours like her friend Janet's mum. She couldn't remember what she had answered but it had been very clever, something about creating a mask of false security. The truth was it took hours to get make up and hair just right and the woman she had been in 2008 wasn't willing to sacrifice any of that time.

She applies another layer of mascara. Sam Tyler never had to worry about things like this. He could just splash water on his face put of his leather jacket and be on his way. She blots her lipstick and scrutinises her reflection in the mirror. Molly would laugh. She'd say something like 'is that my mum in there underneath all that clown paint?'  
At the thought of clowns, Alex feels her stomach contract in fear. She leaves the bathroom quickly without looking in the mirror certain he'll be there staring back at her. Even after downing a cup of tea she still feels cold and shaky.

Today, I will solve this case. She repeats over and over to herself like a mantra as she fixes her curls with hairspray. She practices looking perky as she walks down the stairs. Today, Gene will notice how alive she is, he won't believe this pretty happy woman is the same misery guts he sat across from last night.

Gene is still sitting where she left him last night. In fact his hand is still wrapped around his empty glass. He doesn't move when she says his name, he's sound asleep.  
She prods him with one finger then puts her whole hand to his shoulder and shakes him. Still no reaction. Alex leans over, her face a few inches away from Gene's, her hands on his upper arms. "Wake up Guv." She says.  
Hunt awakens with a start.

"I must be dreaming." He mutters under his breath, if she weren't so close she might have missed it. They stay that way for a few seconds. Alex is surprised by the thought that creeps unbidden into her head. He's going to kiss me. This time he's really going to do it. She feels calm with prickles of excitement just starting to run through her. She's ready for it. She even tilts her face even closer and can feel him grip her wrist, his thumb running over her palm. She swallows; her throat is so dry she can barely breathe. He's opening his mouth to do it, or to say something. Alex wonders if she should just kiss him herself. Not necessarily because she really wants to, more because it feels inevitable and all this delay is excruciating. He finally breaks the moment by letting out a long string of expletives and pushing her to one side.  
Alex is so surprised she doesn't even think to turn around. But when she does she sees Luigi standing at the doorway. She wants to sink into the ground.

There is an exchange between the embarrassed DCI Hunt and the cheerful Italian but Alex doesn't hear it. She's back at square one.  
She can feel the heat in her face. She nearly let Gene Hunt kiss her. She almost kissed him herself. A man she wouldn't have looked at twice in 2008. A man she would have laughed at and mocked with Molly.  
"Go ahead and freshen up if you want to Gene." She says not daring to look him in the eye. He takes her key and turns to go. The touch of his fingers sends a thrill through her. No, she thinks. Not this. She can't do this now. It's just her loneliness and confusion creating false emotions. She has just lost her parents for the second time. And it's so much worse now. Two days after the bomb she doesn't even recognise her own thoughts. What would Molly say to all this?

She leaves the restaurant and walks briskly, trying to clear her head. The sky is grey and light is that harsh unforgiving light of early morning. Before she knows it she's running. Her shirt is damp with sweat, that hair she spent hours blowing dry and spraying is plastered to her face. This is her street. In 27 years time this is where she will live. Molly will live here. Molly. She has to pull herself together; she has to get back to this street in 2008.

Back at CID things are buzzing. Shaz greets her with a smile and explains that some information on Kirsty Andrews turned up. They found rabbit hair on her school jumper. Shaz casts a nervous glance in Chris' direction. Chris shakes his head in warning.  
"What's going on here?" Alex demands. "I deserve to know, I'm your DI!"  
"The Guv said not to say anything." Chris and Shaz say simultaneously.  
It's Shaz who breaks first, who tells her Mr. and Mrs. Andrews are getting a divorce. Mrs. Andrews called in, in tears, positive her husband had Kirsty. Gene had just stepped out a few minutes ago to confront Mr. Andrews and hopefully bring Kirsty home.

He told them not to tell her about it because he was worried it might upset her after the Price case. Thought whirls in Alex' head. Kirsty's father may have taken his daughter. Gene was trying to protect her. Enough. Enough. Enough thinking.  
Once again Alex finds herself sprinting. She catches the Quattro just as Gene is pulling away from the curb and jumps into the backseat.  
Judging from Ray's reaction Gene has just said something screamingly funny.  
"I don't care if I can't hear you Gene, if you're going to solve this case I'm going to be there."

Alex leans back and straightens her jacket. Things were looking up. With any luck she'd be home this time tomorrow and this little inconvenient emotion she felt for Gene Hunt would be nothing but a strange dream.

She was expecting a villa. She was expecting a fountain. She was expecting a slick man with a monocle and a thin moustache. The funny thing was she remembered Mr. Andrews, she had seen him before as a little girl. He was a big man who had recently lost a great deal of weight. His hair was a dirty blond, thinning at the temples. But it was his eyes she remembered; they were so tired, so old, so sad she had never again seen eyes like his. The eyes of a man who had lost everything.

"Right." Gene says. The rest of his words are lost in a flurry of memory. The white sheet moving into the light. The hand beneath the sheet. Mr. Andrews' eyes. Mrs. Andrews' perfume. Red, bright red. Someone taking her eight year old hand as if leading her to a dance. The bomb again? Gene holding her hand? Bright red and the smell of freshly cut grass.  
Alex snaps back into focus.

Ray does the bit where he has a warrant to search the premises. Gene is questioning Mr. Andrews about his divorce. Alex steps back. Gene wanted her kept in the dark about this. He didn't think she could deal with it. She looks about the flat. It smells of stale food and alcohol. She can't imagine Mr. Andrews would let his daughter see this place let alone keep her here. Ray finds one, two, three, four bottles of scotch in the kitchen. And two under the bathroom sink behind the towels.  
"How long have you been drinking Mr Andrews?" She interrupts Gene in mid sentence.  
"That's the reason your wife left you isn't it?"  
Mr. Andrews lets out great sigh. "She was ashamed of me. She said she'd never let me see Kirsty again."  
"So you think she took Kirsty?" Alex asks.  
Without turning she can tell Gene is angry but it doesn't matter, she knew from the start there was something suspicious about Mrs. Andrews.

Gene is pulling her away. His hand on her elbow, he is saying something about a word DI Drake. She tries to control the colour flying to her cheeks, the memory of the moment this morning when she wanted him to kiss her. It dawns on her just why he wants it to be Mr. Andrews.

"You don't want it to be Mrs. Andrews, you fancy her!" She accuses.  
"I do not!" She hears that loud and clear.  
"You fancy her, you fancy her, you fancy her." She hisses.  
"You know what Bolly Knickers? If I didn't know any better I'd think you were jealous."  
Alex pushes him out of the way her head reeling.  
"Nothing here Guv." Ray says. "No girl, nothing."

Alex knows it's because Mrs. Andrews has her.

When the call comes, the world ends. The new world she had pieced together, two days after the bomb, is broken. They found Kirsty Andrews lying on her bed in school pale and cold, blue in the face. Dead.


	4. Two and a half

Enjoy and review!

Two and a half:

The new world is smaller, darker and blurred. Everything is sepia like an old photograph. As they walk through the doors at Ash Street, Alex sees Chris and Ray as dark outlines drawn by a child's hand. She sees Gene outlined in light. She sees everyone in the halls as figures in grey with faces without features, just a smooth, flat expanse of yellowish skin. In this world, as in the previous one, sound is distorted. In one ear everything seems louder. Children screaming, car motors revving, leaves rustling, heels clicking. In the other ear she hears the strange muted tones of being underwater. It's like hearing music with one earphone broken. And there is no system to it. In a second the world may change and a sentence may become deafeningly loud and all the background noise be stripped away.

It's hard to move in this new world. Alex feels like she can no longer trust her balance. One step in front of the other is an awfully big adventure.

They gather in Kirsty's room, waiting for the coroner. Everything is exactly as they left it except the flowers have started to droop. It smells like decomposing roses and something else Alex can't quite place but knows she should recognise.  
The girl on the bed is so still Alex wants to cry. It could be Molly in that bed. She swallows the tears down hard.

It is Molly. Her small face peaceful and pale. Alex reaches to touch her but catches herself just in time. It isn't really Molly, it's Kirsty and she isn't supposed to touch the corpse. And if she touches Molly she might never let go.  
Alex follows them out into the hall, the gurney and the body covered by the sheet and Chris and Ray and Gene and the coroner. Here and there are little groups of students whispering and holding hands. Molly is standing in one group wearing a red school jacket, her lips are blue, and her face is lead white, as white as a clown.

Alex averts her eyes and trains them on the heels of Gene's boots, they slant slightly, proof of the fact that he practically lives in them. He strides forward purposefully, as if seeming to know what he is doing will make up for the fact that they have failed.  
The gurney hits a crack in the stonework of the floor, causing Kirsty's hand to fly out from under the sheet, small, white and seeming to reach out. Molly skips forward and takes it as they continue towards the entrance. She smiles at her mother, her little mouth a black gaping hole, her eyes glittering ferociously. She parts her lips to speak but no sound comes out. Alex is tired of this world. She's tired of the volume being turned up and down. She's tired of her emotions stirring inside, tipping this way and that until she feels sea-sick. She turns a sharp corner into a secluded nook and falls to her knees convulsed with dry heaving. It doesn't matter if they see, it doesn't matter what they say; she can't hear it anyway.

"Genie." A small voice says. Alex gets up abruptly. It's her voice. There behind the gurney, standing next to Gene is her eight year old self. She's reaching for Gene's hand. Alex doesn't dare move any closer.  
Hunt gives the little hand a gentle press. The expression on his face startles her, such tenderness, such concern; a dart of irrational jealousy pierces her heart.

"Everything's fine. Just run along now with your mates, go on now."

From her hidden corner Alex can't be sure if she heard Gene speak or just remembered his words. She recalls a desire to reach out and embrace this man but it's impossible for her to tell if it is a memory or just what she wants to do right now. She doesn't understand what the child is doing here two days after the bomb. Did Evan send her back to school already? To witness this?

Alex catches up with Gene; he gives her a quick look. He's visibly shaken.  
The light outside is yellow and dingy and bathes each of the people standing on the street in a ghostly halo.  
By the van, Mr. and Mrs. Andrews are holding each other up. Mrs. Andrews is weeping openly, the tears making tracks through her painstakingly applied make up. Mr. Andrews is staring straight at Alex, so she stares back; she's expecting anger, expecting rage that she wasn't capable of saving his child.  
There is nothing there in his face except grief and hopelessness.  
From the doorway, 8 year old Alex waves to the father of her friend with no result then rests her eyes on her Gene Genie.  
Alex wonders at her new budding feelings. Perhaps they are just the results of a childish crush. Nothing to be concerned about, banished the next time little Alex catches a glimpse of a cute pop star on television. It seems like such a trivial thing to be thinking of now. But Alex turns the thoughts over and over in her mind anyway.  
Behind her Ray is making a sound of disgust.

"Neither parent was concerned. She needed medicine for her asthma. A nebulisiser. That's probably how she died, that's what the coroner said."  
"Nebuliser." Alex corrects unconsciously.  
"That's what I said." Ray says rolling his eyes. "But neither parent was too concerned with the investigation because they both thought the other one had her and the medicine. So she suffocated, probably."

Alex feels the liquid filling up her passages. If she doesn't scream soon she's going to drown.  
They weren't too concerned.  
Layton almost shot her child and she had sent her off with Evan within the hour so that she could paperwork? Not too concerned. Molly gives her another grin.  
There is something so horrible welling up inside her, Alex doesn't even have a name for it. She feels her legs buckle beneath her as if they are separate from her body. Gene wrenches her up.  
"Don't you dare." He rasps in her ear.  
Alex feels her intestines freeze.  
She pulls away from him in smooth motion so quickly that he has no time to react.

Bright red. She's missing something again. Something she should know. Bright red and freshly cut grass.  
She crosses back through the front hall and then straight through to the garden. Past the crooked rows where students have planted flowers and vegetables, past the trees she had played under as a child. Straight to the wall at the back of the garden.  
She doesn't know exactly what she is looking for, she isn't even sure if she is looking for a real tangible thing or a memory. All she knows is that it is bright red. Red as freshly fallen blood.

The balloon again? Where was the clown if that was where her subconscious wanted to take her? She hadn't seen the clown since the bomb exploded.  
Bright red. Red as the forbidden flowers in Kirsty's room. Not the balloon. Not the balloon after all. Along the far edge of the wall were rose bushes with blooms that precise shade of red.

That's what she recalls. That's what she keeps seeing.  
There is something about these roses she should remember, something other than the fact that they had been the sole spot of colour in Kirsty's Spartan room.  
The scent is overpowering, cloying, like perfume gone off. Like a corpse too long exposed to the elements.  
Someone is singing nearby, a child, singing slowly and carelessly as only children at play do. She used to sing that song.

Ring around a rosy.

She's twirling with Kirsty. Mum is watching them, smiling.

A pocket full of roses.

Except it's posy. Isn't it? She's always sung roses, she taught it to Molly that way.

Ashes, ashes we all fall down.

Thankfully it's Chris, not Gene, who finds her, on her knees, arms bleeding from the shallow cuts where the thorns got her.  
He helps her up and averts his eyes, steering her gently out of the garden.  
"The Guv'll be worried about you." He's saying. Alex feels her cheeks grow warm.  
"He'll have my head. We weren't supposed to tell you anything important. He wanted you safe in the office, where it's you know, safe." He continues.

As soon as they reach Luigi's, Alex ascends the steps to her flat leaving the others to their joyless drinking. Gene follows her to the foot of the staircase; she can tell he wants to say something. From his expression it is unclear whether he wants to berate her or invite her to join him for a drink. She doesn't stay to find out.

Alex doesn't even pause to turn the light in the bathroom on; she strips off her grimy and damp clothes and sits in the bathtub naked. Then she cleans her wounds under the tap as best she can. Even after a bath she feels no cleaner and no warmer, the chill is in her bones. She'd like to concentrate on cracking this case. On finding an explanation for Kirsty's disappearance and reappearance. On finding a profile to fit her kidnapper. On finding the rest of that memory she dredged up in front of the rose bushes. But she can't control her thoughts for long enough. Half of her wants to run down the stairs in her nightshirt and make Gene buy her a drink or ten. The other half wants to tell him she doesn't want to work with him anymore. Both sides of Alex can't keep the image of Gene Hunt's face out of her head. It's fixed there, larger than life with all its imperfections. At last she gives in. She lets him stay there just behind her eyelids until he is replaced by a far more disturbing image.  
Molly.  
She's sitting on top of the television set, swinging her legs and singing in a steady, toneless fashion. She's wearing a white ruffled nightdress and pink socks. Her eyes are dead and cold. The sight of those eyes terrifies Alex beyond all sense. Molly is more horrible than the clown ever had been.  
Alex tries to cover her ears to block out the singing. Ring around a rosy. A pocket full of roses. A pocket full of roses! Why roses? Why did she misunderstand those lyrics as a child? Just because of those roses at school? Or was there another reason? An elusive reason so dreadful her psyche has banished it.  
The song grows louder and louder until it reverberates off the walls of Alex' mind. She feels like the echo will never go away; she'll be hearing those words till the day she dies.  
A knock on the door, sharp as a gunshot silences Molly at last.  
Alex glances at her wristwatch. 4.30, already. It takes all her strength to walk to the door and open it. But all she sees when she does is the last dark flicker of what might be a billowing coat at the bottom of the stairs.


	5. Three

Here goes. This chapter was awful to write. Really awful. But I managed. Thank you to everyone who listened to me whine. Thank you to kimi-87 for the beta thing and lilgreenmomo for the reassurance and to wobbleduck for tweaking my Gene dialogue. Please review!

Three:

Noon has come and gone. Alex is still lying in bed, flat on her back, fully clothed on top of the sheets. She isn't sleeping. Three days after the bomb, sleep remains elusive. She longs for it with a passion. As if it were an absent lover in whose arms she is desperate to be enfolded. Sleep has become her holy grail. The miracle cure to all of her ailments. At this point she is half convinced she will wake up in her own bed in her own flat in 2008 if she can only fall asleep.

Hours bleed into hours. Minutes are stretched like chewing gum. In this new world time has no meaning. The numbers on her alarm clock have no meaning. Just random lines of glaring red light like space age runes.

She doesn't call in sick; she doesn't react to her grumbling of her stomach, she doesn't even get up when she feels her bladder protesting. The same three thoughts run through her head on a loop. One: I need to sleep. Two: I need to remember. Three: Gene Hunt.

The third is shameful and makes her stomach flip uncomfortably; it makes her feel strangely defensive. It is the same feeling she used to get whenever she found herself wondering if things with Molly's father would have worked out had she made more of an effort. It is a feeling akin to the one that might come over you after realising you have just eaten an entire bar of chocolate. Or more appropriately the feeling you have the morning after a great night on the town when you are on your knees in front of the toilet, hung-over. But it is also that fragile excited sensation she recognises from her first experiences with romance. She has no will-power to keep these thoughts from her head and so she just lies there motionless.

Hunt has infected her like a virus. The acute desire to speak to Evan overcomes her like a fever. To take the situation apart systematically with him. To analyse it. She usually depends on Evan to talk her out of inappropriate attractions. The one time she hadn't been able to talk to him about a romantic entanglement had been while she was in Virginia with Molly's father. And that had ended disastrously. Guilt blossoms in her chest. Disastrous except for Molly of course.

Evan isn't here though, not the Evan she knew and loved. The Evan White of this decade is an entirely different creature. Or else the Evan she had loved had never existed. Just as the parents she had pined for had been constructs. How is it in this world that the constructs are more real than the real people? How can she entertain emotions of this sort for a man who has sprung from her subconscious like Athena from Zeus?

There is an explanation for these emotions: The transferral of the hero worship she had felt for Evan onto Gene in the aftermath of the bomb. The loss of two father figures and thus the desire for a strong male individual in her life, someone to turn to when she is confused or hurt.

But that isn't really it. This feeling can't be shoved into a mould. It is soft and fine as a rosebud, but she can't crush it, can't drive it from her mind by force.  
Submission would be so easy. But the stubborn part of her refuses to submit.  
Just as, even though she lies here alone in her flat instead of trying to solve the case with her colleagues, her mind refuses to let it go. Alex turns on her side and rubs her arms against the cold through the sleeves of her leather jacket.

It doesn't strike her all at once. She has secretly been expecting the memory to just appear in her mind as if by magic. It comes slowly in dribs and drabs. It comes painfully, almost anti climatic. When Alex remembers she doesn't understand how she could have ever forgotten.

She remembers Kirsty. Kirsty always wanted to go home with her. She was amazed by her room and when ever she came to visit, she never ceased opening drawers and picking things up. Examining them, commenting on them, trying on clothing and roller-skates and wanting to listen to the radio. She loved the wallpaper, she loved the coverlet on the bed, she loved how nice Mr. Price always was. Alex feels her heart shrivel behind her ribcage at that thought.

It was Kirsty who first told her the story. Though she later managed to get others to tell her what they knew. And this is how it went:

A girl had been found dead at their school. Many, many years ago, so long ago they weren't even born yet. They had found her in the rose bushes. Just lying there as if that was where she was supposed to be. She hadn't even really been missing. At least no one had reported her missing. That bit was crucial because it was a really big surprise when they had found her, her throat crushed, in the roses. In her pockets they found handfuls of rose petals. No one knew why this was important but it was. They never found her murderer, no one, no grown up, ever talked about it. The story among the students was that every few years a girl was chosen and if you weren't careful you might be that girl. The main way to avoid being chosen was to never tell the story to someone else. To take it to your grave.

Kirsty had told her the story using her scary grownup voice. She had stolen sidelong glances at Alex to see how she was reacting. Alex kept her face straight, she practiced that face playing cards with Evan. But even as she pretended not to be impressed, a sharp blade of terror had twisted in her gut.

They had obsessed over the story. Over the girl. What had her name been? What had she looked like? Who had killed her and why? They had turned it in to a game. They had taken turns lying in the bushes holding their breath. Why do children do such things? Years later Alex can't understand and the analytical part of her is too exhausted to do its job.

She had tired of the game eventually or else had been so frightened she finally had to tell Kirsty she wouldn't be her friend anymore. It had spilt her in two. Alex now remembers. A tiny drama that had ended her first meaningful friendship. At the age of seven. A year later. Now. Kirsty was dead. As a child Alex had never acknowledged the death of her erstwhile friend. Still shaken by the death of her parents, she had let it go, dressed it up as a move to another country or the death of a relative or the divorce of her parents. Now Alex wonders if some part of her had known all along.

There is no relief afterwards. No release. Three days after the bomb she can feel her world desperately trying to regenerate and failing. The edges of the wound are jagged and cannot mesh. The world lies broken as a porcelain teapot. Here and there are pieces she can recognise. Here a tea spout, there a handle but most of it is fine dust and jagged edges.

She lies there motionless not daring to even change her position. The chill makes her limbs heavy and her fingers stiff. It's October and she hasn't even begun to think about heating. Her toes are cold in her boots. She isn't surprised when she hears the door swing open she is only shocked to see Shaz's slight form instead of Hunt's bulky one.

Shaz enters the bedroom looking clearly upset.  
"Aren't you cold ma'am? The window is open."  
Alex doesn't answer, she doesn't trust herself to.  
"Why don't you put something on ma'am?"  
Alex looks down at her jacket, jeans and boots. What else should she put on?  
"You've got to come back to work." Shaz blurts out. "The Guv needs you there."  
Alex looks at her friend. Her favourite. Judas.  
"Does he know you're here? Did he send you?"  
Shaz shakes her head 'no'. "What's wrong with you ma'am?" She moves closer to Alex, to the edge of the bed.  
"I'm ill." Alex slurs. She can't even put words together anymore.  
Shaz surprises her. "I can see that!" She says a hint of rebellion in her voice.  
"I know things are hard, but he needs you there. He can't solve this without you. He can't solve it when he's worried about you."

"He managed for years without me." Alex can feel the situation slipping quickly out of her grasp. She wants to run past Shaz and down the stairs, she wants to never stop running. Alex jumps to her feet; the carpeting scratching her bare soles. She pushes Shaz to one side. "Get out of my way." She growls.

"Come off it!" Shaz cries. "I know you care. And you know how he feels about…"

"NO."

Alex starts at the sound of her own voice. It is inhuman. An animal shriek.  
The doors of her mind slam shut. It is one thing to know her own feelings but quite another to know his. He's still two dimensional to her. A cut-out of a human. He has no thoughts or feelings.

She tumbles backwards onto the bed. The door rattles on its hinges again. And Alex blacks out.

I must stop doing this she thinks. It's so cold where she is, her fingers are stuck together with ice, but she can no longer feel it. And the air feels so heavy she can almost see it, a line very nearly touching her skin like the blue streak of horizon in a child's drawing.

This place is calm. She wants to stay. She knows she's stopped breathing but that's ok. She doesn't need to breathe here.

Someone pulls her upright so abruptly her head snaps backward. Her lungs protest as if she has just inhaled acid. Hands on her bare skin, hands in leather gloves. She isn't wearing anything. She never was. She'd just imagined her clothing.

Arms draw her closer. Her head rests at an uncomfortable angle against his chest; the fabric of his shirt clings to it, damp with sweat. She sees the white of the cotton and the grey silk of his tie. She can smell his aftershave.

A hand cups her chin and pulls it upward. Hunt's blue eyes hold her. Then he crushes her face into his shoulder. He holds her crudely, like a man who has never held a woman before. In her memory his touch was gentle, his hands on her skin like a healing balm. But it was never like that. That was a Gene she had created to make herself feel better. That Gene can't hold a candle to the real Gene Genie.

"You stupid tart, you weren't bloody breathing. Again. Scared the living daylights out of me!"  
"I'm sorry."  
"Yeah, well. Stop doing it then."  
He doesn't release her and she doesn't try to escape.

They stay that way in silence with Shaz looking away in embarrassment. Until finally Alex looks down at her breasts and blushes. She tries to cover her chest with her bare arms. He gives a short bark of a laugh but doesn't loosen his embrace.  
"It's not like I haven't seen a woman starkers before is it Bolly?"  
She manages a small smile.  
"You were outside the door weren't you? You sent Shaz in to talk to me."  
He gives her a characteristic grin but his lips are still pale with fright.  
"Maybe I did, maybe I didn't."

She takes her time getting dressed and explains to Shaz about the previous murder, dressing it up as a case she'd heard about.

"But Kirsty wasn't murdered." Shaz protests.  
Alex can still manipulate Shaz. She gives her a knowledgeable look.  
"Trust me."

It's harder to convince Gene but talking fast usually does the trick. That coupled with the fact that she was just in his arms, naked.

Plans are made to search the archives and contact the school. Ray and Gene will bully the Headmaster into disclosing the details.

It is well into the afternoon by the time they leave her flat, Gene first and Alex following. Shaz catches hold of Alex hand as they step out of the door.

"I'm sorry about your…about the Prices ma'am. I know what they meant to you."  
That line of condolence should sound comforting instead the words have a warning quality to them. Alex's stomach does a flip. How much did she tell Shaz in hospital? Could she have remembered anything? Shaz gives her hand a squeeze.  
"Come on ladies!" Gene's voice booms out from downstairs as though nothing has changed.


	6. Three and a half

Thanks to everyone who helped me with this! You know who you are. Enjoy, review...

Three and a half:

Energy rushes through Alex at last. For the first time since the bomb she experiences that familiar tingle of anticipation. The restlessness she only feels while working. She's bubbling over with ideas and plans.

Archives coughs up the case file with surprising speed. Ray hands it to her, looking down in modesty but when Gene and Chris glance his way, he remembers to bluster on about a favour they owed him in Archives. Alex isn't even really listening anymore when he embroiders on his story adding little flourishes about strip poker, what sort of knickers the girls in Archives wear and all night whiskey binges.  
She moves towards her desk unconsciously and passing gives his shoulder a brush. "Keep it simple next time Ray." She smiles.

She devours the file put together by a DI Benjamin Todd.  
The girl's name was Tina Burnham. She was 12 years old. A mature 12 years. She would be 22 now. The details are all there, the rose petals, the crushed larynx, rabbit fur on the sleeves of her jacket.

Alex runs a finger over the photograph, matte and yellow with age.  
The girl looks back at Alex insolently. Her hair is dark brown and long, her lips full, her eyelashes sooty with mascara. She wears a challenging sort of expression as if she is daring the photographer to take her picture. There is something so adult, so terrifying about that expression that Alex almost forgets her new found vigour. For a second she can feel the old, familiar chill in the pit of her stomach, threatening this new bright world. She squashes it before it can spread.

Alex is back. She is whole again. Three days after the bomb she has rebuilt her world inside of a few hours. She forces herself to plough through the autopsy report.  
Contents of the stomach:  
Chocolate biscuits, a carrot.  
The girl had not been sexually abused. There were marks on the side of her mouth. From a gag? Rope burns on her wrists. Three days old. The crushed throat. Alex closes her eyes. The body had been washed. That had struck the investigating officer as odd; he had noted a strawberry scent in the girl's hair. Her clothes were new; whoever killed her had likely dressed her in new ones. Her stockings were on backwards. Her throat had been wrapped with a piece of lace. Delicate floral pattern. To hide the wound? A picture of the scarf was provided. A note had been printed on the back by the helpful DI Todd. Limerick lace pattern.

Aside from the bright red rose petals they found a small panda bear toy and the stub of a pencil in the pockets of her school jacket.

Alex shuts the file. Strawberries, Limerick lace, Panda.

At the morgue with Kirsty again she feels the familiar calm settle about her. This girl in front of her is no longer Kirsty. The inhuman panic is gone. She pulls the sheet from the corpse quickly, not allowing herself to ease back into to the job like a swimmer first wetting his ankles before taking the dive. Alex dives straight in.  
She isn't shocked at Kirsty's slight form, at the ghostly whiteness of her limbs. She turns, suddenly desperately afraid she'll see Molly behind her. Only the pathologist and Chris.

She stares at the Y- incision, the cleanness of the corpse. A quick glance at the report; no dirt or substances were found on her naked body, no wounds, no marks. Alex leans in close to the corpse and takes a lock of Kirsty's hair between her fingertips. There it is. Still there despite the scent of formaldehyde pervading the air. Strawberries. Strawberry bubble bath.

"What are you doing ma'am?" Chris asks his voice panicked and high pitched.

Alex ignores him.  
Perhaps Kirsty wasn't murdered, simply suffocated, the result of an asthmatic attack but there is a connection, she knows it. Kirsty Andrews and Tina Burnham have something in common. And apparently Gene and Ray think so as well because upon arriving at CID, Viv informs her they are on their way to interrogate Tina's father, one Robert Burnham. The school had convinced the police and parents to keep the case quiet, fearful of their reputation. A mistake? 20 years later had the killer struck again?

Mr. Burnham still lives in the same house he and his wife once shared with Tina. The wife is gone, left him after Tina's death.

Alex feels Molly fall in beside her, together they study paintings Tina had made at school, still hanging on the wall and family photographs, dusty but still in their place on the sideboard. Alex does her best to ignore Molly, who shuffles her feet and pops her bright red bubble gum. In the new world she has made, this Molly figure doesn't frighten her. She's in control at last.

The whole house smells of urine and alcohol. For one terrible minute Alex imagines she is still standing in Mr. Andrews dingy flat. That the past day as all been in her mind. But then she reminds herself that she is back. There are no more mind games.  
Mr. Burnham is flanked by Gene and Ray; both are thug-like in posture. Gene is already barking questions at Burnham.

Alex takes the time to wonder if they have followed procedure. But viewing the scene, her curiosity gets the better of her and all thoughts of warrants and legalities melt away.

She trains her eyes on Burnham. A tall man. Tall, but thin and he rattles slightly as if something inside him is broken. His eyes are familiar, Mr. Andrews again. Things are repeating themselves, conversations, people, and situations. Like a bad detective series that has run out of plot.

Hunt seems to think he has his killer. He sums it up for the rest of the room.  
Tina was mature for her age. Burnham couldn't help himself, the girl struggled, and he tied her up, gagged her and finally, killed her.

"No proof of sexual abuse." Alex points out.

"There are ways." Gene says darkly.

The facts whirl around in her head. White lace. Limerick lace. What does that mean?  
Alex can see Hunt weaving around the witness. Moving in for the next jab. Alex knows she should stop him but she can't. She's frozen to the spot; Molly is holding her hand in an iron grip, like a vice. It hurts. She tries to pull away, tries to remain in control of the scene; she holds the world together as best she can, refusing to fall apart again.

Burnham is hysterical by now. His eyes burn unnaturally, his face is deeply lined, the skin paper thin. He whimpers like a beaten dog. This of course is wrong Alex realises. Gene needs an innocent man to protest. He takes this for a confession. She sees him lean forward, his whole body is in it now like a dance. The dance is beautiful but wrong, so wrong, two steps off beat.

"I've got your record right here, bastard!" Hunt continues. "You like 'em young."

Alex winces.

"Boys!" the man pleads. "Young boys, that's what I like. Not my daughter. I loved her. She was all I had!" He has a dangerous snivelling sort of expression on his face, the kind that gets Gene's blood boiling.

Suddenly Alex feels compelled to restrain him; she reaches for his arm a second too late. He's raining blows down on the older man. He draws back a second to regain his footing and inspect the damage. A second is all it takes. Burnham has the speed of a man whose sanity has snapped and the grace of a boxer. He floors Gene with a single clout to the nose. Gene is roaring his words garbled in rage. Blood is streaming down his face and all over his shirt. Ray is restraining him. Alex doesn't know what she is saying. Words flow out. She doesn't even recognise her own voice. She uses words she has never used before. In this second she isn't even sure she's speaking English. Beside her Molly claps and cheers and laughs.

She moves towards Gene her hands are all over him, over his hands inspecting the damage, on his face, blood is everywhere. All over her new blouse, all over her jeans. It feels intimate.

In the Quattro: Ray is driving; Alex and Gene are in the back. Gene is slumped over in the seat, too upset to even look her in the eye. She is trying to clean him up enough to see how bad his nose is.

Very softly, very calmly, like speaking to a frightened horse, she explains to him why it couldn't have been Burnham. What of the lace? What of the petals? These weren't random clues. There had to be a connection.

"You were the one who connected the cases." Gene flares up.

"Yes, and they are connected." Alex insists. "It's just not Burnham."

"Look Bolly; this was all your idea. The roses could be a coincidence. Kirsty Andrews wasn't murdered!"

Alex fumbles with a handkerchief, trying to wipe some of the blood off of his face. He twists away from her violently, his words distorted, like white noise.  
She reaches for him again, closing the gap between them. He gives her a look that goes from angry to confused and back again.

"I felt sorry for you." She can just about understand those words. The world is closing in on her again. Molly is in the seat beside Ray, chatting with him companionably as if he can hear her.

Alex draws away from Gene and listens as his words fade to grey. The secret of this world. When they are close she can understand him. When they are touching. She marvels at the simplicity of this.

He grabs hold of her wrist with no warning, like a snake attacking its prey.

"I thought a case would snap you right out of it. I let you back on because I thought that's what you needed. I was wrong. You've lost it Drake."

Alex bites back her words. She wants to tell him that he's lying, that he needed her, that he's always needed her or Sam to solve the case but something stops her. The ache in her chest when she looks at his bloody face stops her.

She was wrong. This world hasn't changed. It's the same one she woke up to. The same shattered world, three days after the bomb.

The team eats in relative silence that night. Gene has his nose patched up and now reminds her of Jack Nicholson in Chinatown, he barely touches his food. Ray is hovering over him like a mother hen. Alex is so tired she can barely lift her fork. She has no more energy to argue with Gene. His anger is weighing her down; she's like a drowning woman, clothes saturated with icy water, the more she struggles, the faster she sinks. He leaves first, throwing money down on the table and nodding farewell to Ray, Chris and Shaz.

Finally Alex gets up and goes upstairs. She sits for hours in silence going over the day in her head. It's become obvious to her that giving up isn't an option. The only way to break through his anger is to solve this case. She lets out a thin sound between a sob and a laugh.

Three days after the bomb she is struggling for Hunt's approval. An old school policeman, a relic. She is struggling for Hunt's affection. She doesn't even feel ashamed about this anymore. She's too far gone. There is nothing left but to pursue him.

"What about me?" Molly asks. It is Molly. Every inflection of her voice. The slight shrill twist at the end of the question.

"You aren't coming back to me are you Mummy?"

Alex tries to turn away but Molly pulls her back with a shockingly cold hand.

"You choose this man over me?"

"No Molls, I love you. I'm trying…"

"Ha, pull the other one it's got bells on." Molly's words are scathing. They are bitter as stomach acids. Her voice is a black hole; Alex needs both hands to pull herself out of it. She grips onto the world, the broken world, her broken sanity.

"You wanted me dead from the start, I held you back! You wished I'd never been born!"

"No Molly!"

Molly is shrieking, the sound is ripping her apart. There is no backing away from it this time. And so Alex does the only thing she can think of. She tears open the front door and runs down the stairs barefoot. It's three in the morning. She finds Hunt by the bar just as she knew she would. By himself, a tumbler of whiskey in hand, the bottle half empty. He looks subdued in his fresh black shirt, open at the collar and his wounds scrubbed and dressed. She catches his eye, the surprised expression, the parting of lips as he struggles to think of an excuse. She's caught him. She understands now. He came back to stand watch. Just as he has every night since the bomb.

"Please come up with me." Alex begs. Her pride finally stripped away. "I can't be alone tonight."


	7. Four

Thanks to Kimi for the betaing. To Grainweevil for the obsessed detective idea. To lilgreenmomo for support and Eloise, cause she's obsessed and she hasn't even seen the show yet. Also thanks to everyone else who helped out. I whine. A lot. Review and don't be mad at me!

Four:

Gene just stands there in the doorway looking into her flat. He leans against the doorframe and Alex can't decide if it is because he's trying to seem nonchalant as he decides what to do next or if it is because he had had too much to drink.  
Alex looks around quickly, frantically, but there is no sign of Molly.

She pulls on Gene's hand and leads him in to the room. Her heartbeat is impossibly loud in her own ears and she steals a glance at him in case he can hear it as well.  
She stares at his fingers and her own. He isn't holding her hand but he isn't letting go either.

Alex can feel the electricity crackle where their skin is touching. And he can feel it too she realises because in that moment he drops her hand as if scalded. The expression on his face is wary and a bit curious. He rocks from his heels to his toes for a second as if testing the floor; as if he is uncertain it won't crack under his weight and send him plummeting.

Now that she has made her decision, Alex is unsure where to begin. Should she try to explain things to him? Throw herself into his arms? Should she kiss him? So many possibilities. How did she proceed in the past? The past is a blank sheet. Why is every time like the first time?

She figures she must look like a lunatic in her robe, her feet bare, yesterdays make up smudged and caked; her eyes feverish and that stupid grin on her face.  
Wasn't this what you wanted? She wants to scream, her impatience getting the better of her.

Gene is watching her intently. She can almost see him struggling with his thoughts, trying to assess her state of mind.

"Shall I make you some tea?" He asks at last, his expression concerned.

The question seems so absurdly out of character that Alex laughs out loud. Gene blinks. Then his features rearrange themselves into a scowl and he stomps into the kitchen.

"Yeah, ok." She calls after him and sits down on the sofa.

He has absolutely no idea where I'm going with this Alex realises suddenly. It's almost comic. All that agonising over whether or not to give in to her emotions, on whether or not to give in to him. Now it seems he has changed his mind. If she had even been interpreting his signals properly to begin with.

Despite years of study Alex has never really understood the opposite sex. She supposes that is why she was so shocked to discover Evan's affair with her mother. She still saw men in archetypes. Evan was the hero, the white knight. Apt pun. Gene was the trickster. The real world didn't work that way though. If Gene was a fool, a jester, why had she ever taken his advances seriously? All that talk of her bra size and her peachy arse. Alex can't be sure she didn't imagine the whole thing; that she had been flattering herself all these months thinking he was pining for her.  
They sip their tea in silence. Gene seems huge sitting beside her on that ridiculous striped sofa. Huge and unwieldy. Alex pauses for a second.

It always comes down to this with her. She sets a scene in motion only to find events have taken matters into their own hands. She wants something, someone, only to realise, the object or person she spent all her time struggling to obtain, has nothing in common with the image she had created in her head. And then without alcohol or similar to spur her on, she usually draws back, at this point she is usually deterred by the reality of the situation. By the human, three dimensional qualities of the person she was persuing. Not this time though. This time the fact that she can no longer place him, no longer write him off as an archetype or construct, the fact that he is unfathomable, serves to make him all the more attractive.

She wants this man. This man sitting beside her, tangible and frighteningly real. There are two choices: either she waits to see if he will initiate something or she has to be the one to do it.

Why don't you tell me why you've been watching over me? Alex thinks. The thought is so deafening in her head that she can't be sure she hasn't spoken it out loud.

"I've been thinking." She says. "We've lost perspective on this case."

"Yeah, could be." He replies.

Why don't you tell me why you are still doing here with me at three in the morning instead of making your excuses and fleeing to the safety of your own bed? She wants to ask.

"I've been meaning to ask the others what they think. Maybe we should go over the case with them point by point in the morning, get a fresh view." She continues.  
Hunt nods slowly.

Why don't you touch me now? She wonders. Why don't you kiss me now?

Hunt leans forward. This is it now. Now.

He sets his mug down on the floor.

"Right, I'll take the couch, we'd better try to get some sleep." There is an edge in his voice that Alex recognises. It's the same tone she uses on Molly on school nights.  
She stares at him.

"That is what you had in mind wasn't it Alex?"

She waits for the leer for a good five seconds. But it doesn't come. He means these words, this isn't a test, he isn't flirting. He really believes she just wants him here for protection.

In the end it is the way he said her name that decides her.  
She leads him to the bedroom and takes off her robe. Beneath it she's wearing her pyjama top but her legs are bare and cold. He stares at them for a minute before flicking his eyes away. Alex lies down on the left side of the bed. He falters. She thinks he might change his mind and run the other way. Instead he takes his trousers off, folds them carefully and drapes them on the chair, leaving his shirt on.  
When he gets in beside her she stops breathing.

"Night Bolly." He says.

As Alex lies there beside him, wide awake, she can feel every nerve in her body tingling. She hears his breathing slow down until she's sure he's asleep. Too late now she thinks. She should have acted sooner.

A wave of relief and a wave of disappointment wash over her simultaneously.  
She leans towards him, comforted, perhaps because it is Gene lying beside her or perhaps because it has been so long since anyone has really shared her bed. She realises that she has been so lonely and not only since she arrived here in 1981. She has been so lonely.

In the dark corner of the room she can see the outline of Molly. Molly is laughing softly. It isn't the laugh she remembers, the sweet vital laugh of her daughter. It is menacing, a hiss, soft but deliberate. The figure takes a step closer. Alex feels her insides freeze. Beside her Gene murmurs in his sleep and pulls the red coverlet closer. She turns on her side and closes her eyes, wrapping the sleeping man in a loose embrace. She presses her face into his back. The black shirt smells of washing powder and cigarettes and Gene. It isn't the smell of his aftershave, it's a scent uniquely his, his 'man stink' if you will. But it isn't unpleasant. The laughter dies out.

Alex holds on tighter and is surprised when she feels him absently stroke her arm with one hand. His breathing is even, still asleep. The outline of his body against hers is dizzying. She traces a soft pattern on his shoulder. It's getting easier. She's more daring by the second. Alex lets her hand skim along the long length of his body, down his thigh and then up again, up the inside of his thigh. His breathing quickens. Alex's heart leaps to her throat. He turns to face her abruptly, flipping her onto her back and pulling her into his arms, the coverlet tenting them. He is holding her so tightly, so roughly that Alex can hear her bones groan in protest. Then just as quickly he releases her. In the dark she can see the spark of anger blaze in his eyes.

"What are you playing at?" He demands switching on the light, fully awake.

She lays there in shock her thoughts flying in every direction like startled birds. He tears the red coverlet off and sits up. He swings his legs to the floor and gets up grabbing his trousers and exiting the room. The bathroom door slams.

"Gene." She says from the other side of the door. "Gene, I'm sorry."  
She rests her head against the lacquer of the door. The water is running, she can hear him moving around in there.

"Gene?"

The water stops and the door opens.

He gives her a look she can't interpret. "It's ok. I have to go."

Alex can smell her lavender hand soap on him, it's disconcerting.

She stares down at the floor. The world is spinning. This strangely sweet world, four days after the bomb, is revolving at a dizzying speed. If she looks at him now she may lose her balance. "Yeah." She says.

He strides through the flat to the front door. "It's alright Bolls. I'll see you in the morning."

Gene shuts the door gently.

Alex sits down on hard the floor. Her mind is blank, her stomach churning. For a horrible minute she thinks she may cry. Instead, back at square one, the world a new and peculiar place, she starts to laugh. She laughs so hard that tears come after all. She laughs so hard her chest aches with it.

She enters CID that morning dressed to the nines. She figures she may as well go all the way since she has already humiliated herself beyond all hope. She wears red so that everyone, not just Gene, will recognise her Scarlet Woman status. The reactions are perfect, just what she wanted. She smiles and laughs a bit under her breath. Chris looks like his eyes might fall out of his head. Ray can barely contain the mix of lust and smugness, his expression seems to read 'I told you so'.

Shaz looks sad. For a minute that makes Alex feel cold and shabby. Then she remembers how funny everything is. This world doesn't exist either she reminds herself. It's a joke. A sick joke. And Alex is tired of frustration and grief. She wants to laugh.

"Good morning!" She sings out gaily. "Today we're going to solve this case!"

There is a collected chorus of grumbles. Then the glass door swings open and Gene appears.

"Christ." He sighs. She can see it then, the sentence on the tip of his tongue. He has some lovely, mocking remark he is longing to deliver but then he sits down, rolls his eyes at her and gestures.

"Proceed o Bollinger Knickers." He says instead. She is standing beside his chair and for a second their arms brush. She feels the reaction at once and suppresses it violently. He humiliated her; she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of knowing how he was affecting her.

"Right. Let's sum this up:

Kirsty Andrews is missing. Found three days later, dead. On the corpse: Rose petals. Strawberry scent. She was probably bathed after her death. In her room: A jumper with rabbit hair. Tina Burnham died 20 years ago. From what we managed to figure out she was missing approximately three days but this wasn't unusual. She was found dead in the rose bushes, throat crushed, petals in her pockets. And a toy panda bear. Her throat wrapped in a scarf. The pattern of the lace was Limerick. The corpse was washed, strawberry scent again. In both cases it wasn't the father."

She looks into all their faces respectively. Nothing. Blank stares all around.

"That was a mouthful Drake." Gene says.

"Who would have thought we had all that info!" Chris chips in. "What's this strawberry bath stuff then?"

"Yeah!" You want us to search all the houses in the area if someone likes fruit scented soap?" Ray snorts.

"No, silly!" Alex laughs. It's fun. Like a game. Like playing at policemen. Like she played at policeman and murderer with Kirsty as a child.

"And the lace? What's that about? Some old biddy murdering kiddies?" Ray goes on.

"I don't know. Maybe start with the roses. That's a good one. The same roses as the ones in school I assume." She says thoughtfully speaking very slowly, like a schoolteacher. This can't be anything but a joke. Look at what she has to work with? Who she has to work with.

Chris makes an odd choking sound. "No they can't be."

"And why is that DC Skelton?" Alex asks.

"Well." Chris' face is bright red with embarrassment. "Well it's cause the colour is wrong see?"

They don't see.

"Those ones by the school are a different colour. These ones are darkish red. So are the Tina Burnham ones. Well from what you can tell in the photos. And the school ones are brighter like."

"Look exactly the same to me." Gene says dismissively.

Alex is thinking the same thing but doesn't dare admit it. She is still standing to close to Hunt, afraid that if she moves away someone will notice her strange behaviour. Also she is still unsure of the rules of this world. She has already learned, four days after the bomb, just because everything feels and looks normal doesn't mean the world won't turn on her unexpectedly.

"No they're different see!" Chris insists. Ray is making funny faces at him.

This triggers a playful fight, Shaz giggling and throwing in comments from the side. Alex joins in the laughter feeling like one of the team at last. Perhaps the big secret is just to let go. To fit in. Maybe all she has to do is just stop taking everything so seriously.

The sound of a throat clearing silences everyone. A man has entered the room on silent soles.

"My name is Todd, Benjamin Todd." He says.

Alex fails to stifle a giggle.

"Formerly DI Benjamin Todd." He continues shooting her a look of distaste. "I heard you were looking into the Burnham case."

"Look here Mr. Todd…" Gene begins.

Todd is an average sized man well over sixty. His hair is steel grey and a little too long; it sweeps against the brown of his collar. His hands shake slightly. His eyes are bright blue and have an unnatural gleam to them; one Alex is all too familiar with. Andrews, Burnham, Tim Price.

"There were others you know."

The silence after that is so sharp Alex can feel it sting her.  
Beside her Hunt twitches nervously.

"No of course you don't." He has a quiet voice, a calming voice. It settles the hysterical laughter bubbling up inside her.

"Two others. Lucy Ashworth, aged 11 in Manchester in 1946, Emma Gainey aged 9 in 1936 in Limerick. It was the same man. It took me years, I must have read hundreds of cases but I'm sure those two were killed by the same man who murdered Tina Burnham."

"How…" Ray starts.

"Well the lace, on a hunch I stumbled upon the Limerick case. And of course the rose petals. The toys." Todd seems to take note of the looks on their faces.

"You didn't notice the toys?" He smiles briefly. "Well to be fair Tina Burham's panda, Lucy Ashworth's doll and Emma's rosary. The rosary isn't strictly a toy."

Alex coughs. "How were they killed?" She asks.

"Lucy was strangled. Emma was bludgeoned with a heavy object. Both of them had been missing three days prior to their deaths. But despite the information I managed to gather I never really found a suspect. It must have been someone they trusted. Someone they saw everyday. But due to the huge gaps of time between the crimes it was impossible to find reliable witnesses."

"Didn't you question the people at the school?" Shaz pipes up.

"The school was largely uncooperative. Both schools were. The one in Manchester and Ash Street here in London. The girl in Limerick wasn't a student."

"What else can you say about the victims?" Alex asks.

"They were all lonely girls. Neglected by their parents. Tina's mother had affairs; her father was a known sexual offender. Lucy had no mother and her father worked long hours. Emma. Little is know about her. She died in the thirties. So aside from the case file found largely by luck, nothing…and the Irish are a sloppy bunch."

Alex hisses her aversion to his last comment. Her mind is working at a furious rate. Building connections where there were none. Connections upon connections like a spider web.

"Kirsty Andrews was also neglected, she spent all her time at school or at my…at friend's houses. And the toy… the troll, she had a troll." She says, still fretting at the implications of this discovery.

"Hang on now!" Gene bursts out. "One in Manchester? With rose petals? Thirteen years ago when we questioned that fancy French flower fellow..."

"The fleur de mort." Chris interrupts him.

"Shut up Christopher!" Gene snaps. "Anyhow Terence Finn, he said an old murder case had given him the idea of leaving flowers on the body."

Alex shifts her weight from one foot to the other. A darkness is spreading through her. Everything is relevant she thinks. Everything is connected. She was right. Only a few more steps till she frees herself from this labyrinth, this spider's web. She can get out of here, back to Molly. Away from Gene and that whole awkward situation. This should make her happy. Instead she feels frightened and sad.

"I need to speak to her!" Some one is calling from the hall. "Alex! Alex!"

It's Evan. Dishevelled and hysterical. Alex reaches for his hands unconsciously. They are ice cold. She has never seen him like this. Not even after the bomb. Today, four days after the bomb, she is witnessing the ultimate ruin of a human being.  
"What is it Evan?" She demands. "What has happened?"

"It's Alex, Alex Price. She's gone. She's missing."


	8. Four and a half

Hey everyone. I really didn't do it on purpose. I didn't leave you hanging on purpose. Really... There was the thing about my computer breaking down. And the moths. Anyhow. Thanks to everyone who listened to me complain. Thanks very much to Kimi for the beta. Thanks to lilgreenmomo for constant support!! Giselle: The last part of the chapter is for you. Read and review!

Four and a half:

By now Alex has seen her world shatter and reform so many times that she isn't even surprised anymore when this one falls to pieces. She has stopped wondering when she will hit rock bottom. Alex has decided this is the abyss. And there is no bottom. There is no bottom, only this: the abyss, to be falling, descending without cease.

The new world is bright red and blazing. Everything is impossibly loud. From across the room she can hear Gene breathing; she can hear the slight smoker's rasp. She can hear Chris shuffle his feet, the rubber soles squeaking on the linoleum. She can hear the dam break deep within Evan, one second before he starts to cry. He pulls her to the ground and she kneels there with him, his head against her collar bone. She puts her hands on his head and runs her fingers through his hair. It has grown so long. She wishes everything were normal again and she can give it a trim for him. She remembers this. She remembers what Evan meant to her before the bomb, before Gene Hunt. She remembers a time when it was just the three of them. Alex, Evan and Molly. Their little family. She strokes his fine hair and bends slightly to press her cheek to the top of his head. Evan sobs into her shoulder.

That sharp sound like paper tearing in her left ear is the sound of Gene's disdain.  
"Pull yourself together man!" Hunt barks, shoving them apart and manipulating Evan into a chair.

"Tell us exactly what happened."

Evan struggles. "She was at school. They haven't seen her since yesterday noon. The Headmaster said there's a possibility that she just ran away, I mean after…after the bomb. But, I mean after what happened with Kirsty. I just know something's wrong."  
His words trip over themselves, they dip up and down, now louder, now softer, now ear splitting.

"The Headmaster is a bleeding idiot." Ray mutters.

Alex says nothing. There is something building up inside of her, seething, surging to the surface. This thing is pulling her in one direction; her feelings for Evan are pulling her in another.

"Well yes, you've been to the school. So have you been to the Price residence?" Gene asks.

Evan shakes his head in the negative.

Gene grabs hold of Evan's tie and pulls him forward sharply. The legs of the chair making contact with the floor produce a screech that echoes on in Alex's head, ghastly and nerve- rattling.

"Well that's the first place you should have looked isn't it?" He shouts. "She's frightened, she'll want familiar surroundings. But mind you if she's there curled up under her bed then I'll break your arse for wasting precious police time."

The look on Evan's face as he nods in agreement breaks her heart.

Chris and Shaz stay behind with Todd, going over his old case notes. Everyone else files into 

the Quattro for the drive to the Price house. Alex squeezes Evan's hand, trying to keep the swirling, churning emotions under control.

She holds on to her knees in the Quattro, her knuckles turning white. Evan is beside her staring straight ahead, his eyes blank and feverish. Sweat stands prominent on his brow.

She wants to say something reassuring, something positive but the words catch in her throat.

There is something horrible at work within her. She's only now realised what this means. There will be no going back if Alex Price dies.  
There will be no Molly.  
There will be no DI Drake.  
There will be no world with Alex in it.

She chews on her fingernails absently.

"Stop that." Evan says. Pulling her hand away from her mouth. "It took me years to break you of that habit."

Alex gives him an alarmed look.

"I meant to say to break Alex of the habit. I'm sorry. I can't think straight."

Alex breathes easier. She puts her hands in her lap and looks down at them. Willing this to be all over.

The house is exactly the same as it always was. Alex isn't sure why she expected it to be different. She was only here four days ago. Perhaps it is because Alex herself has changed. Irrevocably so. The Alex who had stormed in here 4 days ago and planted a packet of cocaine was a different woman altogether. A foolish woman. Someone who held her optimism close as a lover and nurtured it until she truly believed she had the power to change things.

The Alex who stands here now is less cocky. Now she can only hope she will manage to piece things together in time.

A few things are missing from the usual places. Things Evan has taken: things the child Alex might need, things Caroline had packed, thinking she was going away on a trip with her little girl. The smell is new. An acrid smell the whole house is filled with. Like moths burning in a lamp. Alex runs her hand over banister, arms of chairs, and stacks of books. As she had done before in this house. Trying to soak up the memories these inanimate objects hold. Everywhere are reminders of what she has lost. Here a photograph of her mother, there her father's slippers. A teddy bear she had received from a family friend and promptly forgot about until this moment. The stair she tripped and split her knee open on. Memories crowd her mind, colourful and jewel bright as the stained glass in the hall.

How different things might have been, Alex can't help but think. Her parent's death was like a scratch in the LP, the needle was stuck in the groove and could go no further. Their death was the poison that tainted everything. If not for this, she might have had a real family. A real life. Not this makeshift one with Evan as a father, partner and saviour. Molly her sole line to the world, constantly reeling her back in away from her career. Constantly holding her back. Forgive me Molly.  


Her whole life dedicated to what had been. A world built upon grief. A world no more real than the multitude of worlds she had seen come and go in the past 4 days.  
In her own room again. Somehow it feels wrong. The room is dead, the air is stale, like no one lives here now or ever will again. But still part of her wants to curl up beneath the pink coverlet. To press the button on the cassette player and hear 'Green Door'. She thinks if she can just get back in to bed and shut her eyes everything will be alright, all a dream.

"Did you check under the bed Bolls?" Gene asks startling her out of her reverie.

She finds herself standing in front of the mantle, her hands pressed to the sides of her face. She pulls the diary from its hiding place. It's light in her palm, such a small thing. What's behind the white leatherette? What else does it contain? What will it reveal? She can remember writing in it. She can remember the feelings and hopes and wishes. They rise up in her now, clamouring to be heard. But she remembers nothing of being kidnapped. Why is this happening? Or is it something completely different? Alex strains to remember the days after the bomb, the real days after the bomb, the first time around. But nothing comes.

Hunt makes a clicking sound that signifies his impatience. He is behind her, hand outstretched.

It feels so intimate handing the book to Gene. Far more intimate than being wrapped in his arms, naked. More intimate than the furious crush of his embrace but a few hours earlier. The diary is smaller than she remembers it being; in Gene's hands its size is laughable, dwarfed, insignificant.

Gene scans the pages avidly, holding the book as though it is a precious thing that might crumble at any moment. Alex recalls receiving the book for her birthday. She recalls her father's gentle smile as he handed it to her. She shudders now at the memory.

He closes it and gives it back to her.

"It doesn't look good Bolly." His voice is gentle, hushed. It sounds awkward on him.

She opens the book and reads the later entries so fast the lines seem to blur before her eyes.

In her own childish hand are words she can't remember ever writing. Entry upon entry about feeding rabbits and visiting an enchanted rose garden with her new friend.  
What new friend?

Her eye catches on the word troll. That gift had been from the kidnapper? That ugly doll she couldn't be without as a little girl?

Alex exhales painfully. If she fails all is lost. Everything will be over. She struggles to hear her own thoughts above the din of the ordinary world. Downstairs the erratic beating of Evan's heart. Ray thumping around aimlessly. Her own footsteps on the stairs sound like bombs going off. If she fails she'll never see Molly again. Because there will be no Molly.

Gene drives them to Evan's office. No one speaks. Something is playing on the radio, soft and cheerful. It irritates Alex, the mindlessness of its catchy tune and nonsense lyrics. It gives fuel to the anger brewing in the pit of her stomach.

She walks Evan to the door, concentrating on every step. One foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other. Now say goodbye and return to CID she wills herself. But then she sees the miserable look on Evan's face. It's like salt in a wound.

"What were you thinking leaving her at school?" Alex demands, no longer able to keep the question in.

Evan takes a step back, shoulders hunched in despair.

"There was so much to sort out after Caroline… after they died. The school was practical, I was in no shape...I mean they were more than happy to keep her there. I never thought…" He breaks off wistfully.

"That's right! You never think!" Alex snaps. She advances towards him shivering with rage. The affair with Caroline, his failure to stop the bomb, this negligence which may cause her death, all the fruit of his thoughtlessness.

She feels Gene's hand on her shoulder.

"Softly now Bolly." He murmurs.

She twitches in annoyance. Now he touches her. To rein her in. To protect Evan. She wants to push him away but doesn't in the end. She is so close to Evan now she can hear his skin singing with fear. She can smell it. It turns her stomach.

"What about her state of mind? The girl just lost her parents." She practically spits the words at him.

Gene's grasp on her shoulder changes slightly.

Evan blinks at her. He leans forward, holding out his hands. He still doesn't have the sense to get away from her. He still doesn't realise the storm is coming. The hole inside her is so large by now she feels like a shell of herself. Just one more word from Evan and she will crack into a million pieces. One look and she will scatter to the winds.

"Alex, I don't understand why you are shouting at me. We should all be working together." Evan beseeches. "You yourself left your child alone. Why isn't she here with you? You must understand."

Too many words. Alex cracks into a million pieces.

"How dare you?" She shouts, tensing all her muscles in one last attempt to keep herself under control. To no avail. She scatters to the winds.

With one furious motion she tears free from Gene.

Alex flies at her godfather, fists balled. She can't feel the ground beneath her feet. At the first impact with Evan's face, power surges through her. One taste of that power is enough to hook her. She hits him again. Pleasure runs through her like a current. And again. A triumphant scream bursts forth from her. In her head all she can hear are the blows. Jarring as cymbals, beautiful. She can't hear Gene or Ray above the noise in her head. She barely acknowledges 

their presence. Evan is on the floor, arms raised to his face not even attempting to defend himself properly. His shouts are soundless.  
And again. She tears at him with her fingernails. There is no grace in what Alex does. No rhythm. It isn't the dance Gene led with Burnham. These are the frenzied convulsions of a woman under electricity. There is blood. The sight of it spurs her on even further. She kicks him squarely in the ribs and crows with joy at the sight of him twisting in pain. The world is blurred. Bright red as her rage. And again. She wraps her arms around his neck, squeezing the breath from him. Her teeth are clenched so hard she can taste the chalky grit on her tongue.

Finally Gene manages to pry her free from Evan. She falls to her hands and knees, scraping her palms raw. Hunt covers her body with his own, as if he is protecting her from a blast. She struggles against him futilely like a specimen in a butterfly collection, pinned in place. Hunt is whispering in her ear. Something soft and soothing, something you'd say to a crying child. With growing desperation Alex pushes her way up, almost succeeding in catching him off guard this time. It's the adrenalin. Under normal circumstances she'd have no chance against Hunt. Under normal circumstances she could never hurt Evan. Gene pulls her upright keeping her arms pinned to her sides.

"Down girl." He commands.

Ray lets out a yelp of laughter before he is silenced by a glare from the Guv. He hurries to Evan's side and helps the injured man up, brushing off the front of his suit.  
Gene has his arm around Alex. He holds her with a lover's posture but his grip is like iron.

"Let me go!" She hisses hoarsely.

He pulls her along grimly.

"Let me go." She repeats.

"No, love." Gene says quietly but firmly.

Alex lets herself go and follows him silently, placid as a calf being led to the slaughter. Inside she rages against the prison of her own flesh and bones. She longs to be free to finish what she started. She has no concept of time as she follows him. She only knows that when they reach Luigi's she can no longer hold it in.  
Alex cries.

Her sobs are real and ugly. There is nothing feminine, nothing remotely attractive about these tears. Hunt tries to drag her up the stairs before Luigi can stop them, before the guests can comment. His arm catches her beneath the breast, crushing her ribs. She lets him take her half way up the steps before she falls, her dead weight pulling them both down.

"Not now Bolly, please." He mutters.

But Alex can't help herself. She's reached the point where she couldn't stop crying even if she wanted to. Snot flows freely from her nose. Gene takes her keys and fumbles with the lock, drops them and pulls her down to the ground to look for them with him. He curses.

On the ground Alex catches hold of the front of his shirt and sobs into it.  
"Watch my tie sweetheart." He tries a light tone and a small chuckle but it's strained.  


They burst into her flat and stumble to the couch. If Alex had her wits about her she'd recognise this scene. She'd marvel at the repetition. Instead she covers her eyes with swollen hands and lets Gene take her jacket off. Alex whimpers as he takes her boots off. She lets him open the collar of her soiled blouse. Then he stops.

He lets her cry a good long while, awkwardly patting her back. Then when the tears start to die out he peels the salty hair from her face.

"Do you need some time?" He asks.

Alex stares at him dumbly.

"This is still about the Prices isn't it? Well it wasn't that soppy lawyer's fault. You didn't have to kick the stuffing out of him."

The tears begin afresh.

"Come now Bolly it's not all that bad. We still have time to solve this. Every able policeman in London is looking for that girl now."

"But it is bad." Alex sobs. "I don't do things like that. You, Ray, maybe Chris but not me."

Gene lets out a loud laugh. "That's what this is about?"

Alex hides her face in the pillow.

"You let the tiger in you get out. Don't think about it. It happens to everyone."

Alex sits up abruptly. "To you maybe." She mutters.

Gene stands up and goes to the kitchen. He brings back a tea towel and a bowl of warm water.

"You go to sleep. And tomorrow it won't be quite as bad." He wipes her face with the towel. It feels warm and comforting. He brushes back her hair with a jerky motion.

"But…" She begins.

"The first time is always a shock. But you'll see. Sleep will do you the world of good."

He starts on her hands. They are bright red and puffy. Covered in cuts and bruises. The palms are scuffed and bleeding. He washes them. Chiding her gently when she winces. Alex looks down at his hands. The elegant fingers, the soft flesh of his palms. His hands are beautiful. They seem to have nothing to do with the rest of him. Nothing to do with the thin determined lips, the puffiness of middle age which has settled around his stomach, the pock marks on his face. His hands are things of poetry. He gives her a look that speaks of the conflict within him.

"I'll never get to sleep." She whispers.

"You'll see. It'll seem hard but once you get there you'll sleep like a baby."  


Her cheek is damp on the striped cushion.

"I'll try if you want me to. But I won't sleep." She says.

Gene's hand is heavy on her back, solid and comforting.

"Go on then try. If I'm wrong you can drive the Quattro all day tomorrow." He says in that fake light and reassuring tone she already recognises.

I won't be able to. Alex thinks. But then she does. She does after all. Four days after the bomb, with Gene's hand warm on her back, Alex sleeps.


	9. Five

Hello all. Thank you so much for all the reviews. Thanks to Kimi! Thanks to everyone for the help with the allotment part particularly Lucida Bright and louella. The beginning of this chapter is for Eloise. Who remains true to the real Gene Genie. Special thanks to lilgreenmomo for motivation as always. And thanks to grainweevil for pointing stuff out.

Five:

It's the light that wakes Alex up at last.

It's the wrong colour. The warm sunlight streaming through the blinds is the yellow light of summer. Soft hair tickles her cheek. Molly is standing above her, smiling broadly.

"First day of summer holidays Mum!" Molly jumps on the bed and wraps her arms around her neck. "Can we have pancakes and syrup for breakfast?"

Alex wakes up.

She's in bed, her legs tangled in the sheets. Above her is a silky canopy. She recognises the canopy and the colonial print, the glossy hardwood floor and the oriental carpets. Outside the window she sees the delicate white purple of waxy magnolia blooms. Their lemony scent fills her head with all sorts of memories and crazy ideas. David's house in Virginia.

"Just give me a sec babe, eggs and coffee coming up pronto!" Her ex husband calls from the kitchen.

The sheets smell like David, she isn't wearing anything underneath them.

Alex wakes up.

The barrel of the gun is ice cold against her forehead. Layton looms above her larger than life. Sweat runs down his face and drops to the corner of her mouth. She recoils in disgust. His breath is rancid, his hair oily. He strokes her cheek with one spindly finger. Alex is frozen in fear, she knows she should look away but she can't.

"I said don't look at me bitch!" He rasps; her face is clamped in one of his hands. He grinds her head into the ground, gaining leverage, and then pulls the trigger again and again. She feels the bullets enter her brain before she even hears the first blast.

Alex wakes up.

His skin against hers feels glorious. Alex blinks her eyes open. She's in Gene's arms. But this time he too is naked. He places his hand behind her head and draws her towards him. Alex's heart is beating so fast it seems to hum within her chest.

"God Bolls, I can't wait any longer." He breathes and lays her down on the striped sofa.

This one is real Alex thinks. This one has to be real. He grips her hair with both hands.

Alex wakes up.

She wakes up bathed in sweat beneath Gene's overcoat on her striped sofa. She sits up gingerly and rubs her head. Every muscle aches. Her hands are bound in fresh bandages. Alex looks down at her boots and fur jacket in a heap on the floor. She looks down at the red silk blouse she is still wearing, creased and stained beyond recognition. The short skirt is tangled around her middle; her stockings are torn and grimy.

She thought she would wake up to a new burst of energy. That she would gain the strength to solve the case. She wasn't expecting this all consuming exhaustion. She looks about the room. Still Luigi's flat. Probably still 1981, five days after the bomb. Perhaps less than a day away from death. The light that creeps into the room is cold and stingy. Early October light. The air feels dense, rich with the imminent rain. What sort of world has she stumbled upon this time?

A quiet one, she decides. But this is a different sort of quiet. The broken exhaustion after sex. The worn out stillness after New Year's Eve. The hush after a storm. The silence of a sore throat after a temper tantrum. The world five days after the bomb.

With her hands bound Alex finds it difficult to wash and dress. She does the best she can. This means sacrificing her fancy hairstyle. She opts for comfortable clothing, sober colours. The bright colours she usually wears hurt her eyes. The image in the mirror startles her. She can almost recognise herself. Alex Drake from 2008 stares back at her and attempts a small smile.

A strange calm covers her. There is structure in the world. But Alex knows this trick of old. The skies will clear only to surprise her all the more when she is drenched in the downpour. She stands in the centre of the room. What happens now?

The door swings open to reveal Hunt, coatless, his face red with cold. He claps his gloved hands together.

"Colder than my ex wife's heart out there Bolly." He says.

Alex's heart contracts.

Part of her was hoping it would be over. That she would wake up to find that in this new world, Hunt meant nothing to her. That she would look at him and feel that dull annoyance she used to feel, nothing more. How much easier it would be if this were over. She wouldn't have to feel so conflicted about leaving him behind if she returns to Molly. When she returns to Molly.

A wave of lust and tenderness washes over her. In the new, ordered, gleaming world this cocktail of emotions catches her off guard.

"Come on now Bolls, no time to lose! Where's your coat? You're not having mine." Hunt glows with energy and purpose. He shrugs on his coat. "I've solved the case!"

Alex just stands there too shocked to speak.

What world is this?

"You're looking right sombre today Drake. Going to a funeral?"

Alex looks down at her clothing. Grey and Black. She lets Gene wrangle her into her coat, still unable to open her mouth and ask him the question she holds balanced on the tip of her tongue.

He threads her hands through the sleeves. Then he stands back to look her up and down critically.

"Still quite pale aren't you? You'll want some of that slap." He points his chin down at the collection of make up she spread on the sofa before realising how difficult it would be to apply it.

She holds up her hands in explanation.

"Must I do everything?" He asks. But there is a light heartedness in his voice. Hunt cups her chin in one hand and proceeds to apply blusher to her cheeks. He touches lipstick to her lips. Their eyes meet.

Alex wants to protest this is silly. Ridiculous in light of the danger she is still in. But in this world she has no will to speak.

He's still staring at her. He's smiling but the seriousness in his eyes frightens her.

"Blot." He says handing her his handkerchief.

She obliges.

"Perfect."

She gives him a quizzical look. So many questions but the words stick in her mouth.

"Never you mind." He says. "Don't you want to congratulate me on solving the case?"

Who is this giddy, energetic man in front of her? Gene's eyes glow with excitement.

"Tell you the truth Bolls; I didn't think I had it in me anymore. Thought I'd gone soft. But the Gene Genie is back in business."

Why don't you just spit it out? She thinks dully.

"Right. It was the gardener."

Alex is too surprised to react at first. She just looks at him. His conquering hero expression. The way he throws his chest out proudly.

"All at once it hit me! Limerick, Limerick lace. I knew I recognised that accent. The whole time it had been bothering me. Course it makes perfect sense now." He pauses to allow her time to process the information.

"At the school? You remember Bolly, the gardener. Little Irish fellow."

She twitches. Why won't the words come? A whole river of words waiting to flow out. To tell him this is madness, that he can't accuse a man of four, possibly five kidnappings and murders based on an accent. But no sound comes out of her mouth.

Hunt shuffles his feet.

"No need to look at me like that Drake. It isn't just a hunch. He's our man. At least he will be when I get some evidence."

Alex sighs and lets him button her coat shut. She struggles to regain her will. It seems sleep was not the solution, not the cure, not the grail after all. She has woken up a powerless puppet and all she can do is bide her time and pray for this world to fall away like the dusty remains of a cocoon. This world, cold and sharp as glass.

Gene's mood is irrepressible today. He whistles as he walks. Alex stays close to him afraid that if she falls too far behind she will lose the will to continue moving. The ashy smell of winter is in the air. It warns of something big coming. Something frightening.

CID seems larger than life. The ceilings rocket up endlessly. The lighting is harsh and cold, mercilessly bright. Alex's eyes sting and water.

She lets Gene guide her to her desk and then sits down and tucks her hands out of view. Ray is staring at her. The expression on his face is hard as diamond. He seems sullen, petulant like a boy who didn't receive the Christmas gift he was expecting. Chris on the other hand is as lively and excited as Gene. He stands by her desk beaming like an overgrown teacher's pet, determined to win a gold star. He keeps going on about something. Alex forces herself to focus. Roses.

"I told you there were two different kinds. So this morning I popped into a nursery and this is what we came up with."

He hands her a book.

The pages fall open to a photograph of a cluster of scarlet roses. Robin Hood, 1927, continuous flowering. A musky scent. The flowers at the school.

"And this one."

He closes the book and opens it to another page.

Crimson Glory. Alex reads. A deep and heavy scent. It is a red as soft as velvet. The colour of the petals in Kirsty's pocket, in Tina's pocket. She runs one finger over the print.

"Mr. Todd went with me and said those are the ones."

Chris' face is so hopeful, like a puppy desperate to be praised so she gives him a smile and pats the book purposefully.

"The man at the nursery was going on about one place particularly that had excellent Crimson Glories. Some allotment. They could have won prizes. That's how good they were. He gave me an address see?"

Alex can't help feel they are grasping at straws. Roses, allotments, gardeners from Ireland.

She takes the scrap of paper anyway and nods at Chris. Hoping with every fibre in her body that no one will notice what is wrong with her. Shaz probably does though; she fixes Alex with a knowing glance, her lips curling up at the ends in a sympathetic half smile.

"Mr. White is fine by the way. A few bruised ribs but that's all." Shaz says.

A blush dusts Alex's cheeks. She looks down at her desk trying to seem busy.

She can't remember what the next step is. She's been here so long it seems natural to adopt the haphazard way they go about solving cases.

When Hunt gives them all assignments for the morning Alex can't help notice he skips her over. She tries again to find her will, the forcefulness she was filled with only yesterday. This is her only chance. She can't stay here looking through files with Shaz while Alex Price lies dying. But she is locked within herself, silent and subdued and no amount of struggling can force the words of protest from her lips.

It seems Chris found his spine when she lost hers. He thinks Gene should let him come along to the school. He thinks he earned it after finding out about the flowers and he wants a look at the gardener. After much consideration Hunt finally agrees to take him. Chris skips out the door, clutching his jacket and doesn't see the look Ray throws him. An expression that could cut glass. Ray's rather unromantic assignment is to check up on the gardener to see if his name comes up anywhere. Previous felonies and the like. Bill Gallagher.

"Doesn't sound like a murderer." Ray says. "But then neither did Tim Price."

Shaz hits him hard on the arm and drags him away. Alex can hear him protesting all the way down the hall.

"Just making you a cup of tea ma'am." Shaz calls.

But when they aren't back 15 minutes later Alex's curiosity gets the better of her. She hears them inside the tea kitchen but pauses just before opening the door.

"She's a cold manipulative bitch that's what she is!" Ray is saying.

"Ray!" Shaz exclaims.

Alex plucks at her bandages in discomfort. This is what she came here for, to eavesdrop. Then why is her conscience bothering her now? Why does she feel guilt prickle beneath her skin like so many pins and needles?

"All she does nowadays is get in the way and distract the Guv." Ray continues.

"How can you say that? DI Drake helped to solve more cases round here than you ever have! Where would your precious Guv be without her?"

The flush leaps to Alex's cheeks and her ears burn. Shaz's words have roused her pride. She lets herself bask in it for a few seconds before focusing on the conversation again.

"Well if she weren't prancing around like a tart on marching powder he could concentrate better."

Nothing prepares her for what Shaz says next. There is a strained silence before like the water gathering before the tide hits the shore. And then she's drowning.

"Can't you tell they have feelings for each other?" Shaz practically shouts. "It isn't just something she did."

Alex shuts her eyes. Relief spreads slowly through all her extremities. Relief and then sharp embarrassment. She wants to burst in and deny everything. But her feet are heavy and her mind won't stop its mad whirring.

There is a long silence as Ray digests this information. His snort of laughter sends a shiver down her spine. She's never heard such disdain.

"If she's got feelings, then why is she always acting like he isn't fit to shine her fancy boots? Why doesn't she show it?" He asks.

"Maybe she should." Shaz says so softly Alex almost misses it. "Before it's too late."

There's a rustling sound and the hiss of the kettle and the dull thud of Ray kicking the leg of Shaz's chair like he always does.

"He could do without all this now. That loony tart messing everything up. If that little girl dies just imagine what Lord Scarman will do. Wasn't he a friend of her parents? We'll be lucky if it's only our jobs we lose." Ray's voice seems so close she presses herself hard against the wall and holds her breath, afraid they'll hear her and come storming out with even less respect for her than before. If that's even possible.

She'd forgotten. She had been so concerned with holding herself together, with what this case meant for her future that she'd forgotten about Lord Scarman.

"And right now we seem to be clean out of luck." Ray continues.

"We'll have to make our own then." Shaz says.

Their words fade, drowned out by the sounds of tea being prepared.

Alex has just enough time to make it back to her desk before Shaz arrives with a mug.

She accepts it with a smile but in her head her thoughts tumble over each other, every one of them more threatening than the last.

Gene and Chris burst into CID in high spirits. They didn't find the suspect but they searched his room.

"We found loads of stuff!" Chris chirps and proceeds to hold out a plastic bag containing a bottle of bubble bath. The label is still partially visible and displays a cartoon strawberry. Another holding three troll dolls. And yet another protects a child's drawing of a rabbit signed Kirsty. Gene hands Alex a ledger containing careful lists of seeds and bulbs purchased and fertilisers and plant food needed for the care of Crimson Glory roses. He stabs one finger at an address on the fist page. Alex holds out the scrap of paper Chris brought back from the nursery. They match.

Hunt catches her gaze and races her to the Quattro.

When they pull up in Cable Street under the railway Alex realises she knows this place. She knows its smell and shape. She knows the trees and the pavement. She knows it just as surely as she knows her own name or what city she was born in.

They find the allotment they are looking for quickly enough and at once it is clear that Gallagher's garden is different.

Beyond the rusted gate lies an enchanted garden from a fairy tale. The fence is lost in a mass of ivy, thick and luxuriant.

A narrow path made of painstakingly mismatched pebbles and beach glass snakes towards a narrow wooden shed painted brilliant green. Forsythia hugs it, its flowers golden yellow. All sense demands they search the shed first but in this place, five days after the bomb there is no sense. Late blooming wildflowers and fronds grow in seemingly random patterns, silvery with frost. Columbine, common dog violets, daisies and foxgloves in pinks and purples and whites. Alex crouches down and runs her hand over an orange brown bloom. Orange hawkbit: fox and cubs. She remembers. Greater knapweed, meadowsweet and agrimony, yarrow. Beech trees cast long shadows over the garden, their leaves coppery in the sunlight. A pair of spindle trees with their small pink berries grow to the left and blackberry bushes with glossy purple black fruit. Alex takes a berry and crushes it letting the juice stain her fingers. The grass is lush and such a bright green, a green Alex only knows from dreams.

It seems to Alex this place is trapped in a bubble, protected from the real world. A magical place where seasons do not matter. A place that glitters as if covered in fairy dust. A place a lonely little girl might consider a haven.

Behind the shed are the roses. A riot of deep red. Blooming late from what Alex remembers from Chris' book, summer has come and gone and yet they still flower. Every rose is perfect and seems to glow from within. They creep up the fence that separates this garden from the next. Between each rose bush growing low to the ground are flat leaved fragrant lavender plants. Why is that so familiar? This whole place is so familiar.

From behind her Alex hears Hunt murmur. "Is this heaven?"

At last they move towards the shed door. This is it. The last stop. The last circle of hell. Once they open the door either they will save the day or everything will be over.

Gene doesn't see the girl standing at the entrance of the shed. Her pink dress and smudged shoes, her autumn coat and that scarf Evan bought her for Christmas, Molly.

"You didn't think it was over did you Mummy?" Molly asks. Her eyes, solid black, glitter menacingly.

Alex can't move. She can't cry out. And if she could what would she say? Unconsciously she reaches for Gene hoping the touch of his hand will protect her from the grim spectre of her daughter.

No such luck.

Her fingers brush his wrist but Molly remains. She laughs long and loud.

"Silly Mummy. You think that will help now? Now that you're this close to failing." She holds her thumb and forefinger less than an inch apart.

Molly slithers towards her mother smooth as silk.

"But I'll let you pass if you promise." She whispers, snake-like.

Gene looks back at Alex, uncertain how to proceed. He doesn't see Molly guarding the door, but something prevents him from opening it nevertheless.

"Promise you'll give him up. And I'll let you pass." Molly wheedles.

Alex shakes her head.

No. She says, no sound issuing from her mouth.

"Promise it! And we can be together." Molly insists.

No. Alex tries again. No. You aren't my Molly. You aren't my child. You are a serpent. Nothing you say makes any difference. Not a sound emerges. The words are frozen in Alex's throat.

"Then I'd rather you were dead!" The girl shouts. "I'd rather we were all dead! Goodbye Mother. Goodbye."

She lunges for Gene, arms outstretched, fingers splayed, her face is ghastly and white as chalk, her shriek is piercing. Hunt falls back, brow furrowed in confusion, his eyes fixed on the space where Molly stands. For him there is no Molly, there is only empty air. Alex grasps his lapels, preventing his fall. She looks down at the black cloth in her hands, oblivious to Molly's screams. And finds her voice at last.

"For luck." She murmurs and kisses him hard on the lips.

Hunt chokes in surprise. His hands come up around her shoulders and for a split second Alex is unsure whether it is to draw her closer or push her away. Gene tastes of coffee and cigarettes and vaguely of whatever he had for breakfast. Her hand slides to the back of his neck. Goodbye Gene, Alex thinks. She kisses him again, softly this time. Her mind stops its frantic scrambling. Her breath catches in her chest. There are so many things she wishes she could tell him with this kiss. In an ideal world he would understand. In an ideal world he would kiss her back. But there is no ideal world five days after the bomb.

He breaks the kiss with a nervous laugh. To her chagrin his face is bright with amusement. But as before his eyes hold a warning. He draws his gun and reaches behind her to open the door. No force is necessary, it creaks open.

The shed is small but roomy enough to house a row of rabbit cages along the right wall. The scent of rabbits and straw pricks Alex's nostrils. Against the back wall are cast iron shelves filled with gardening tools and bottles of fertiliser.

She doesn't know why it takes her a full minute to notice the sofa. A narrow brown thing upholstered in a flowery pattern popular about a decade ago that stands to the left.

And on it lies Alex Price.


	10. Five and a half

Thank you to every one who read and reviewed this! It's certainly the longest piece of fanfiction I've ever written and my first try writing a crime story. Thanks to Kimi! And to lilgreenmomo and louella (or rather her two year old). I hope you're pleased with the end of this. Now I need a holiday, ;o) then I'll see about writing another one!

Five and a half:

There is no world.

There is only the black hole spreading, swallowing all. And in the corner of her eye the bright light that is Gene. Above her a myriad of constellations and other stars flicker then die.

The stars we see in the sky are already dead and cold, their light only reaches us now. Like me Alex thinks, like me.

Time turns, seasons change, Alex falls to dust where she lies, grass grows and flowers and the trees above her, insects till the dirt.

The grass is wet beneath her fingers. It cushions her, it embraces her form. It fades to stone, the memory of Alex's body scorched into the ground where she once lay. One piece in a puzzle too large to be solved.

"Get up Bolly, she's alive."

A foot connects with her side, gently but purposefully.

She feels a jolt like an electric shock. She's lying in Bill Gallagher's allotment, in the grass not a foot away from the green shed. For a few minutes she can't move. She can only watch Gene's legs walking away from her. Alex scrambles to her feet and runs out of the garden. She can see Gene's tall form ahead of her. His shoulders are hunched slightly, in his arms he carries the slight form of little Alex Price. In no time Hunt reaches the Quattro, cursing as he struggles to open the door and hold on to the child at the same time. Alex stops dead in her tracks. She can't follow him to the car and get in. She can't hold the little girl in her arms.

"Drake! Move your bony arse! She's barely breathing."

She can't move, she can't risk it.

"Drake!"

She's frozen there. Time has no meaning in this place. This place she is stranded in, in lieu of a world. Perhaps seconds have passed, perhaps hours.

The tires screech as Hunt pulls away and tears down the street, leaving her behind. Alex finds herself back in the shed. She sits down on the brown sofa and stares at the rabbits. She tries to make connections, where would Gallagher go? What would he do? Where is that talent she once had for looking into men's minds?

"You in there ma'am?" Ray calls from the garden.

Alex gets up and lets him drive her back to CID. There is something different about Ray. The way he's looking at her as if he can barely contain himself. She already knows what he wants to tell her. He's only trying to protect his idol, his mentor: the Guv. There is no way to reassure him so instead she lets him change the radio station and smiles at him when he sings along tunelessly.

The atmosphere is strained at CID, the pressure building up before the rain.

Chris is on the phone updating Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, reassuring them that they will have Kirsty's kidnapper in custody any minute now.

Evan is there talking to Gene before he rushes to the hospital. The static in the air is distracting. Agitating. Every piece of furniture crackles with it. She can't bear to look at them. Evan looks her way as he leaves but doesn't stop to speak to her. Despair and regret pierce her heart.

Do it Alex thinks. What they had may be gone, that precious bond shattered forever but she owes it to him to say something. She runs out into the hall after him.

"I'm sorry." Alex says. No words can ever make this better. "I'm sorry." She repeats, meaning it with every fibre in her body.

Evan looks straight ahead, his poor bruised mouth twisted into a semblance of a smile.

"I was wrong to speak to you like that Alex. It is I who must apologise."

She shakes her head. Bluish marks stain his face where she struck him only yesterday, she longs to kiss them better.

"It's alright." Evan says his voice barely a whisper. "She's going to be alright. The doctors examined her and she's unharmed. He probably slipped her a sleeping pill before he left. And I swear to you Alex. I'll never leave her alone again."

His hand hovers above hers, Alex can still feel the bond between them, not broken by yesterdays events after all, not broken, only altered.

"I know you won't." She whispers.

"She must never know, she doesn't know what Gallagher has done. Those other girls."

"She'll find out one day Evan, all of it. You can't keep things from her forever."

"I can try." Evan says. She recognises the firm tone. There is no point arguing with him.

There is nothing they can do now but wait for someone to spot Gallagher and report him. Alex can't sit still. The world keeps rearing up and sliding back down into oblivion. Like the lens of a camera slipping in and out of focus.

She tries to hold on to it. Tries to force the world into existence by sheer force of will. Alex Price is safe. Gallagher has no place to turn; it's only a matter of time. Everything is going to be ok.

Why doesn't it feel that way to Alex? Alex Price lies in hospital, still alive. But nothing is alright. Alex lays her head down on her desk, cushioning it on a pile of documents. The light from Gene's office reflects in her eye. She finds herself standing in front of the door and peering through the blinds.

She sees him slumped over, his chin resting on his palms. He leans back in his chair and reaches forward to grasp the bottle of single malt in front him before thinking better of it and releasing it.

His hand dips into his jacket pocket and pulls out a wisp of white cloth, a handkerchief. A square of cotton edged in a dark thread, navy blue or black; from where she stands she can just make out the initials G.H. in the corner. A present from his mum? His ex wife? Ordered from a shop in a pack of ten? His thumb moves over the centre of the cloth, over a stain of bright pink.

Alex swallows. She can barely stand to watch as he lifts it to his nose and over his lips. He leaves it there a moment. Her pulse throbs in her neck.

She opens the door to his office. Hunt lifts his eyes and looks straight at her. His expression is a trifle defiant; he sticks his chin out and draws his lips into a straight line. Then he puts the handkerchief down to the right of the computer, in clear view.

Alex speaks first before he can make his frail excuse. "I think we should go back to the allotment. We may have missed something. Or he may go back."

For a second Alex thinks he may say no. But then he gets up and pulls on his coat.

They drive in silence. Rain falls in tentative drops, rapping a soft staccato on the windscreen.

The evening sky is orange and black.

She can see the fire before they even reach the allotment. The smoke chokes the sky and blacks out the moon and stars. Rain streaks the inky smoke with silver. The sharp scent of burning leaves enters the Quattro through the open window.

Gene stops the car and leans forward against the steering wheel.

"Looks like we're too late Bolls."

Alex presses her face against the window, her breath painting patterns on the glass.

There it burns. Gallagher's enchanted garden. The flames caress the beech and spindle trees and embrace the narrow shed and all its contents like a lover. The rich grass green of the lawn and the lacy wildflowers are swallowed up. The bushes and the delicate path. And the roses. The prize winning Crimson Glories. Alex closes her eyes.

She remembers how they felt against her cheek, like satin. Their scent. Rich and sweet as incense. She remembers her thoughts upon seeing them for the first time. Beautiful. They were the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

There it burns, her childhood memory. Her sanctuary.

Mr. Gallagher was old, darling, perhaps he went home to Ireland. Evan had said. Why had she never questioned that? Why had she just let it go? Like Kirsty. Like everything in her life that had gone wrong. Like her parents. Like David. She just let it go without question. Well she was done with that.

"Gene…" Alex begins.

He turns in his seat to look at her properly. She can feel the aching distance between them, solid as a wall even though he's only a few inches away. Close enough to touch, close enough to kiss, so close she can feel his breath when he exhales.

She opens the door and stumbles out, scrambles down the street towards the iron gate. In the distance she can hear the wail of the fire engine. Nee-nah-nee-nah-nee-nah, Molly had sung when she was younger.

She reaches out to grasp the bars, oblivious of the heat emanating from them. Someone is calling for her from the shed. A slight form clothed in shadows. Alex struggles with the latch.

"Mummy! Mummy!"

Alex knows that it isn't Molly. That twisted figure writhing in the flames isn't her child but all the same she can't help herself. She pulls at the gate with all her strength.

"Molls!" She cries, the name escaping her mouth in a single burst of breath.

Hunt has slipped between Alex and the gate; he clamps her wrists together with one hand.

"Stop it Bolly, you'll hurt yourself."

She can feel the pain now, the sting in her hands where the hot iron bars burned through the bandages, the ache in her wrists where Gene is still gripping them. Alex pulls away from him, breathless, he's stifling her. Her lungs heave and labour. Through the smoke she can see the wraith that wears Molly's body.

"Alex!" The figure by the shed calls. "Alex!" Its voice is penetrating and deep. Not Molly's voice at all, the clown's voice.

Let it burn, Alex thinks, just burn. Leave me in peace. And burn it does, with Alex watching on until the figure is gone, the screams are gone and all she can hear is the flicker of the flames and the hiss of the sparse rain. Exorcised at last.

The fire engine sounds so close, if so where is it? Why doesn't it arrive?

The sound of a shoe scraping against the pavement causes Alex to turn. There in the shadow of a tree stands a stooped figure. A real figure. A flesh and blood man. He lets out a low keening sound of despair. He's a small man, about two heads shorter than Alex, with snow white hair and skin as brown and wrinkly as a walnut.

"That was my whole life." He says. His voice is soft but it carries; a lovely voice with just the very last vestiges of a Limerick accent. He draws the words out haltingly as if he is unused to speech or just very distressed.

"You killed them." Hunt says in a matter of fact way, each word like a stab.

Gallagher nods. "But I didn't mean to. I was saving them. I loved them. No one else did."

Alex can see there nothing left in him. He's just a shell, a shadow, perhaps he always was. He doesn't understand the implications of his actions.

"What did you give Alex Price?" Alex asks.

Gallagher doesn't react at first. His eyes are far away, seeing something long past, someone long dead.

"Those parents of hers never had anytime and then they died. They left her all alone. All my girls were like that, alone. I gave them presents. Let them play with the rabbits, play in the garden. I didn't want to hurt them. I took care of them, good care of them. Better than their parents." His voice grows thin, weary from all these words; he speaks like a man unaccustomed to stringing sentences together.

Hunt takes a step forward, rocking his body back and forth, tensed like a spring.

"Even after their…" He pauses here unable or unwilling to speak the word death out loud.

"I took care of them; I bathed them and gave them pretty things and flowers. But they didn't want to be saved, they didn't understand. Emma, Lucy. Tina had spirit, she knocked me down. I didn't want to but…" He halts and coughs. His eyes are fixed upon his burning paradise.

"Kirsty suffocated." Alex finishes for him. "What did you give Alex Price?"

"Phenergan elixir." Gallagher says at last. "I didn't hurt her." He insists.

Alex almost has him in her grasp now, he's close enough to grab, to twist his arm back and cuff him. She does so. His skin feels so fragile, thin as paper, as a whisper. The metal from the handcuffs will leave a bruise for sure. He doesn't protest, doesn't even seem to register what is happening to him.

"William Gallagher, you're under arrest. You have the right to remain silent, but anything you do say will be taken down and may be used in evidence against you." Gene says. There's softness in his tone though as if he's aware that a loud noise or sudden movement might cause Gallagher to unravel completely.

He nods at Alex gesturing for her to escort the old man to the car.

The firemen are here now at last and they set about putting out the fire with an elegance of a stylised ballet. They make room for them, fleeing towards the car, away from the fiery garden, Hunt first then Gallagher with Alex close behind him, moving slowly and stopping every few steps to look back at the flames.

"We have all we need to lock you away for good." Hunt says opening the car door. "You didn't have to burn the garden down."

Gallagher looks at him, eyes unblinking. "I didn't." He says simply.

"I did." A calm voice, smooth and cold and quiet speaks out above the wind.

Andrews is standing there behind the Quattro by his feet is a canister of gasoline.

"DS Skelton told me about this place, about the man who took my Kirsty. And so I am here." Mr. Andrews explains, quite pleasantly, conversationally as if making small talk with a neighbour. His clothes are dishevelled and damp, his hands encased in leather gardening gloves.

He steps around the car silent as a spectre and stops when he reaches Hunt, a few feet away from Alex and her prisoner. He isn't crying. He's barely moving. Then in one fluid motion he pulls Hunt's gun from its holster, quick as lightening. Gene's gasp is like a gun shot. Mr. Andrews doesn't even look at Hunt; he throws him off with a sharp back hand.

Andrews aims in direction of Alex and Gallagher, almost casually, like he's only playing.

Alex cries out, too slow and too far away to stop what happens next. And then Andrews fires the gun, his face devoid of all expression, his eyes dead and haunted.

Gallagher crumples instantly, his hands pressed to his chest, blood gushes from between his fingers.

"Alex." He chokes, taking a step towards her. Imploring her to help him with his eyes. Another blast and Gallagher falls heavy upon her, throwing her to the street. She can't push him off. She hears herself sob raggedly in shock and horror. She struggles beneath him trying to flip him on to his side to check the wounds. Gene is roaring at Andrews wrestling him to the ground and cuffing him.

"You're nicked!" He shouts, breathing heavily.

Gallagher is dead. His blood pools around him, thick and dark, darker than his Crimson Glories. The second shot caught him between the eyes and his snow white hair is soon bright with blood. Alex falls forward against his chest, she breathes in the earthy scent of his jacket. This was her friend. Whatever else he had done, she still remembers, he was her friend. She chokes and shudders in disgust; even friendship is tainted in this place.

Gene wrestles Andrews into the Quattro. Cursing and struggling because though Andrews is not resisting, he has also stopped moving. He lets himself fall completely, dead weight in Hunt's arms. Silent tears are streaming down his grizzled cheeks. He's completely broken, devoid of soul.

The rain starts at last, slowly at first, mild but steady. It works away at the blood stained pavement, spreading the red stuff rather than washing it clean.

At CID Chris is waiting with the happy news, Alex Price is awake and asking for Gene. She can't remember much. Hunt calls the hospital and talks to her for a few minutes. His voice soft and cheerful and full of tenderness. Alex tries to strike up a cheerful conversation with Shaz but can't concentrate. She can't concentrate on anything but the soft buzz in her ears and the tapping sound of rain against the windows. Shaz gives her a gentle smile.

"It's going to be alright ma'am."

This time those words ring hollow.

When they shuffle off to Luigi's Alex lags behind, struggling with her tangled emotions. She thought she'd have all the answers, or at least a few of them. Instead she finds herself replaying the scene with Gallagher over and over in her mind. Stopping at the moment when he said her name. How did he know it? Did he recognise her? She was hoping it would all fall into place. The world would come alive again in a wash of technicolor like in The Wizard of Oz. Questions upon questions, and no answers in sight. She's like a woman stranded on a raft at sea, the promise of land before her only an illusion, but so realistic, she can almost smell the earth. The promise of a real world. But there is no world five days after the bomb. There is only the chill and the rain and Alex's thoughts turned inward, circling endlessly with no relief. Making connections where there are none. Five, five days after the bomb. Five girls kidnapped. Emma Gainey first, then ten years later Lucy Ashworth, then ten plus five years later Tina Burnham, then fifteen plus five years later Kirsty Andrews and then irrationally Alex Price, five days after her parents' deaths.

Four dreams she awoke from this morning, plus this reality. The fifth dream?

Five letters in the name PRICE, five in the name DRAKE.

The mind in search and find mode, taking random information for gospel.

Chris and Shaz are holding hands and laughing at Ray who sprays them with water every time he jumps into a puddle. Hunt walks to one side rolling his eyes at them. Alex's heart aches at the sight of him. His long legs, and the way he dances to extricate his coat from between them when the wind blows; the set of his jaw and the sharpness of his blue gaze, the outline of his body in the falling rain.

In her worldless state Alex hardens herself within. Shaz was wrong. There are no feelings there, only pity. There will be no happy end with Gene Hunt. And Alex is done chasing shadows.

She stops in front of the restaurant and looks down at her bandaged hands, at her bloodstained clothing. It's all wrong. All of it. I t doesn't make any sense. The black hole still looms only a few steps beyond where she is standing; she's on the precipice. There is no world. If she walks into Luigi's restaurant, she may never stop falling.

"Go on Bolly." Gene says. "I'm starving."

Alex turns and strides past him. It's started to rain in earnest now, hard rain, noisy, cold. She thinks if she can just walk away; get away, maybe it'll all be over. Maybe she can just get on with the rest of her life. Tomorrow she will think of new ways to get back to Molly, that's all that matters now.

"Just stop Drake, stop. What is it now? It's all over. Murderer stopped, wronged parent got his vengeance, little girl safe and sound. Why can't you just let it go? Happy ending."

"Because there is no happy ending Gene!" Alex shouts. "And you, you can stop staying up at night and watching over me. Because it doesn't make any difference. Go on they're waiting for you."

He grabs her wrist and twists it gently. Such beautiful hands capable of such graceless things.

She doesn't try to free herself.

"You don't have to take care of me." She whispers. The rain is falling in sheets; its roar is like music. "I've been making a fool of myself and you've been so…kind…" The last word sounds wrong, its very shape is wrong upon her tongue.

He pulls her towards him, towards the door of the restaurant. Inside their colleagues are laughing and drinking, oblivious of this scene. They're close now, too close, his hands are heavy on her shoulders and she has no strength left, she can't tear free.

"It's all about timing Bolly." Gene says. He's holding her head between his hands now, so tight it's almost uncomfortable. She can't think how to get out of this one. No way to look away but no way to keep looking straight at him. She closes her eyes. She can feel his thumb brush her cheek, gently, so gently, she may have imagined it.

"Look at me Alex." He says, the timbre of his voice changes, deepens. "It's a question of finding the right time."

She opens her eyes.

It's not a dream. Alex sees the dark flicker of emotion pass over his face and starts to say something. Too late. His mouth is upon hers and he's kissing her. He's kissing her at last. Her thoughts pull her in every direction at once.

Then he steps forward to close the last little space between them and traps her hands between his own, holding them against his chest. And she kisses him back. And for now there is no rain, no wet London pavement, no restaurant full of laughing colleagues, no interchanging worlds slipping in and out of consciousness, no abyss and no uncertain future, there are no frosty fingers of death reaching for her here. For now there is only Alex and Gene.

Just Alex and Gene, five days after the bomb.

The End


End file.
